


A Fox, a Wolf, and a Sheep All Walk into the Fort

by Adira_Tyree



Category: Fallout: New Vegas
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Alternate Universe, Ancient Greek, Brief Gore, Caesar's Legion, Drug-using Raiders, Enclave, Fallout Kink Meme, Gen, Latin, M/M, NCR, Panic Attacks, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Slow Burn, Smoking, Soulmate-Identifying Timers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-16
Updated: 2016-03-27
Packaged: 2018-02-13 09:42:50
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 26
Words: 76,518
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2146044
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Adira_Tyree/pseuds/Adira_Tyree
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Soul-mates. Arcade has long since given up on the concept that his is out there, if only because every day he’s noticed his timer slow or even stall as the war progresses – as if even Fate isn’t sure anymore if it’s going to work out for him. But his day has finally come, and it’s not exactly what he’d hoped it to be. No fireworks, no fanfare. Just a mess of shouts and confusion. Emotions run hot, and cold, as he struggles to decide for himself what his fate really is, and whether or not he wants to follow it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [What Happens In Freeside....](https://archiveofourown.org/works/1446199) by [CoffeeMinx](https://archiveofourown.org/users/CoffeeMinx/pseuds/CoffeeMinx). 
  * Inspired by [Counting Down](https://archiveofourown.org/works/1927389) by [ChocoChipBiscuit](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ChocoChipBiscuit/pseuds/ChocoChipBiscuit). 



> This was sort of inspired by a prompt on the Meme, asking for fills having to do with soul-mate-identifying timers. I've been throwing around ideas for an Arcade/Vulpes fic for a long while, and this was really the only way I could make it work in my head. So I went for it. But keep in mind that I'm not exactly known for writing happy, fluffy things, and that this probably will not have a happy ending. I wanted to post this on the meme, but posting long long long fills on there is just too painful. I don't have the energy to format it, and I have no idea how much longer it will be. But it's only getting started. Apologies for starting yet another story.
> 
>  
> 
> _Please note I am in the process of editing earlier chapters to match the quality of later chapters. If a chapter has been edited, it will say so at the start-of-chapter Notes._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _Re-edited 2/13/16._

This was not how it was supposed to happen. Arcade stared down at the timer now in his hands, watching at it blinked; bold, red.

He’d always imagined the timer would sound like birdsong when he finally heard it. Nothing could have had more terrible a sound as their cover was blown, totally.

 

Six’s eyes were wide, ablaze with fire as she stared at him pointedly; she could swear up and down at him even with her mouth closed. He was fairly certain that she wanted to kill him right then and there just to be rid of him, with his old-world fairytale buried alongside him. The only thing keeping his sorry ass alive was that his skills were invaluable to someone as accident- and danger-prone as the infamous Courier Six. It was hard to say which was the greater danger to the other – Six to the Mojave, or the Mojave to Six.

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” she muttered, her low voice a hoarse whisper. “You brought that damn thing _with you_?”

Arcade was stunned into silence still, alternating between staring down at the timer and out across at the man now staring directly into the mouth of the cave they’d chosen as their hiding place.

“As if I would leave it home?” Arcade sputtered, unsure of what else to say. It was his _soul-mate timer_. Of course he’d brought it with him; leaving it home defeated its purpose. If it had been further away from the time it counted ever down towards he _might _have left it behind, but somehow a “simple, there-and-back, won’t take more than a day” mission with Six was never simple, there-and-back, or less than a day.__

Six rummaged in her pack, arms flying as she pulled out one item after the next: a pistol, a plasma pistol, a frag grenade, stimpaks, finally pulling out two tiny computers. She strapped one to her own arm and one to Arcade’s as well. The damage was done, but she quickly slid everything back into the pack with a noisy clatter anyway. StealthBoys or not, someone knew they were in that cave.

 _A very attractive someone, for that matter,_ Arcade thought. He quirked an eyebrow, taking in the sight of long legs, muscular arms, and skin light enough to rival his own. Despite being built for survival, the man was obviously not accustomed to standing under the Mojave sun. A rare privilege that Arcade himself wasn't often privy to. It meant he either had money or power. Or both. Neither was preferable, in this sort of scenario - at least from where Arcade was standing.

The man walked slowly into the cave towards them, eyes scanning from side to side. He stood only feet from them, from him, gaze catching the rippling effect of the StealthBoy. Arcade’s breath quickened in his chest, but he didn’t dare move to cover his mouth. StealthBoys weren’t perfect, after all. Not even close. He tried to focus on simply not breathing at all in hopes of shedding the gaze, but Six proved herself enough of a distraction for that.

“Make a move I don’t like and your throat is—”

The man dug his elbow back into Six’s thin frame and she fell back to the cave floor with a thud behind him. He spun on his heel and crouched over her, a hand on her shimmering throat. Arcade jumped forward but was met with a 10mm aimed directly at him.

“I don’t like being followed,” the man said, voice deceptively calm for a man that was holding two potential threats at bay each with a single hand. “And I especially don’t like having threats thrown at me,” he added, glaring down toward Six with a blank expression.

“I don’t feel all that threatening right now,” Arcade muttered. Effectively-invisible or not, he could still pretty easily catch bullets.

The man smirked over his shoulder, not bothering to look at Arcade as his eyes remained trained on Six. “No, you’re not. Still,” he watched Six’s struggling form, head cocked with curiosity, “who are you, I wonder?”

Six laughed. “Dog you are, I’m surprised you haven’t figured that out already,” she choked out.

The man straightened, giving her a quizzical glance, then looked between her and Arcade. “Merda,” he muttered, groping blindly for the necklace that had slid down Six’s shoulder. He ran his thumb over it, cursing again.

“Wait, is he… we’re stalking a Legionary?” Arcade asked, voice dripping incredulity. It was his turn to stare as Six continued to laugh. Even for Six, this was a particularly stupid idea.

“Not just any Legionary,” she half-shouted. “ _Dog-head!”_

The man stood, snarling as he stepped away and looked out across the Mojave. “Of all the idiotic ideas,” he started. “I can’t even kill you! I should have known it was you. You’ve been following me since I left the Strip.”

“We’ve been following him?” Arcade parroted, his voice suddenly higher.

Six fizzled into view when she finally managed to pull the StealthBoy away from her wrist again. She rolled around on the ground, tears streaming from her eyes with cackling laughter. It seemed that the Legionary found the whole thing about as amusing as Arcade didn't.

Giving up on redeeming the situation, Arcade tore off his own as well and threw it at the ground beside Six’s head. “You knew I had to wait, and you insisted on dragging me along behind this, this—”

“Careful what you say, Follower,” the man growled, his voice low. It sent shivers down Arcade’s spine and left a feeling hot in his gut that he hadn’t had in years. “The Courier bears Caesar’s Mark; you hold no such assurances.”

Arcade ground his teeth together for a moment as he reshaped the end of his sentence, his fists clenching and unclenching in the air in front of him. _“...behind this delightful young man.”_ Then he realized the much more concerning part of the man's statement, taking half a step back towards the cave wall. “You were going to see Caesar?” he asked Six, his voice was so quiet even he could hardly hear it over her wheezing giggles.

Down on the ground, Six nodded, struggling to breathe with a comical plastic grin splattered across her face. She mouthed “yes” over and over, unable to actually voice the word. The sound of her laughter faded as she could no longer breathe in, but she continued in silence anyway, seeming to have completely lost control of herself.

“Hell,” Arcade muttered running a hand through his hair. His fingers played with the tiny black timer in his pocket, an old habit built up over years of carrying it everywhere with him.

“What are you holding,” Vulpes asked, his eyes narrowing as he stared at the hand that wasn’t fisted in Arcade’s hair.

“Nothing,” Arcade said just a little too fast, his fingers tightening around it enough to make his joints ache. “It’s not a weapon. It's nothing, really.”

The Legionary rolled his eyes and stalked towards him.

“What are you doing?” Arcade said, stepping backward as his voice jumped an octave. Still advancing, the man reached for Arcade’s pocket. Eyes wide as dinner plates, Arcade kept moving backward until he hit the cave wall. He shoved his hand into his pocket and wrapped his fingers around the timer, but a hand was already pulling it away. _"No!”_ Arcade shouted desperately, his cheeks flaring. Too late.

The man stared at the tiny display, still flashing red zeros straight across. He blinked, turning it over in his palm. “Is this—”

“Yes, it is,” Arcade said hotly, snatching it back out of the man’s hand. He set it back into his pocket where it belonged, twitching it around in his fingers with an agitated glare - which he focused anywhere but the Legionary. The sandy floor of the cave had a peculiar particle size, more of a fine, pebbly gravel than a true ‘sand.’ Suddenly it was particularly fascinating. 

“It’s still blinking,” the man said, looking nearly comical as he continued to stare into his now-empty hand.

“Yes, it is.”

Arcade could hear the slow intake of breath, feel it on his skin as the man exhaled. He hadn’t noticed the hand pressed beside his head against the stone, or just how close he was still standing.

“Tell me: perhaps you and the Courier haven’t met before?”

Arcade blinked. “Oh. Oh no. You’re not alone, are you?”

The man groaned his frustration, stepping away to stand nearer the entrance to the cave. His skin almost glowed where it caught in the light of the low-sitting sun.

Six still cackled again, curled into a ball in the dirt. Arcade shot her an angry glance, having much preferred her silence moments before. There was no way for it all to be possible. He had to be dreaming some absurd, horrible nightmare of a dream. Perhaps a crow was squacking outside his tent, translating in his sleeping mind into her obnoxious laughter. Either that, or there must have been something in the air.

“Well this is simple,” Arcade reasoned. He slipped off his glasses and wiped them clean with the end of his shirt, giving him yet another excuse to avoid looking at the man. “Yours hasn't gone off, has it? I mean I’m not even supposed to be here; Six—”

“The Legion does not have such things,” the man said, his voice bitter. “Assimilated tribes are made to dispose of them. But I have seen them enough to know they aren’t rubbish. They simply prove to complicate matters in war, as we now see.”

“Oh.” His glasses felt heavy in his hand.

“ ** _Dog-head is GAY_** ,” Six spat out with another screeching giggle.

Arcade scowled. She had always been a tactless fool. Not oblivious, simply tactless. 

“Unfortunately,” the man ground out between gritted teeth, “I am _not._ And I must ask again that you do not call me that, Courier.”

“What _do_ we call you?” Arcade asked. “Not that names have to make any sense. You don’t have a dog’s head, I’m not any fun, but—”

“Inculta. Vulpes Inculta.”

“Oh.” Arcade blinked. “Oh no. You’re _Vulpes Inculta?_ ” The words stretched slow like taffy, sticking to his mouth even as he pushed them out.

Vulpes glared across at him with stony eyes. “I am.”

“You’re the one who destroyed Nipton?”

The glare turned into a smirk, obviously pleased that his works were already known as far as New Vegas. “I am.”

“And you’re sure there’s no one else here?”

The smirk faded back into a grimace. “I am.”

“Oh no.”

 


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Forgot to mention there would be bits of Latin and Ancient Greek in here. They're all translated into [English] right beside the foreign text. If you're reading this on a smartphone or tablet, it's fairly probable that you won't be able to read the Greek in it's original form, but most computers now come with fonts that have Greek language extensions. Not a whole lot of people read Greek anyway, so I doubt it will be much of a problem...

This was not how it was supposed to happen. There had to be a mistake; could there be mistakes with soul-mate timers? What if he should have met, should be meeting his soul-mate back in New Vegas right now? That had to be it.

“This has to be a mistake,” Arcade said, with not as much force as he’s intended. “I’m not even supposed to be here right now.”

“You said yourself,” Six sputtered through her (finally dying down) laughter, “it can’t be wrong. It’s _fate!_ ”

“Well… what if I was wrong? It wouldn’t be anything out of the ordinary. Scientists are wrong all the time. Half the time it’s our goal to be wrong, so that we can have a shot at being really, really right sometime.” Arcade crossed his arms over his chest, shrugging in on himself.

“What, do you think I brought you out here just so I could have a laugh at your expense?” Six asked pushing herself up to a sitting position.

“That was more than one laugh,” Arcade muttered, frowning.

“I didn’t even know your timer thing was getting close,” she said, panting and out of breath. “Besides, it’s all brahmin shit anyway.”

“It isn’t!” Arcade shouted. Each step he took toward her was made of fire. For the first time he could remember, she looked afraid of him. It made his chest ache but he pushed the hurt back down. “This is my _life_. I’ve stared at that miserable little count-down for thirty-six long years, wondering if I would _die_ from infection or a bullet wound before it ran out.”

“Arcade, I didn’t—”

“It’s not _my_ fault that you didn’t have one when you woke up with that hole in your head. Maybe you had your chance already, maybe you didn’t. Maybe you fucked it up. Maybe it is all brahmin shit, who knows. But that doesn’t mean you can toy with mine!” The blood rushed through his veins tangled with adrenaline as he stared down at her.

Six’s eyes were wide with shock; too low. Too much. He’d brought _that_ up again. Oh no. Her eyes glazed over.

Arcade’s knees ached as he dropped to the ground in front of her. “I’m sorry, Six, Six—”

She started shaking from head to toe, eyes rolling back into her head.

“No, no, Six. _Six._ You’re all right, come on!”

Vulpes dropped down behind her head and held it still between his knees. Her throat bucked forward as Arcade struggled between trying to hold her arms still and making sure she didn’t feel restrained. Vulpes had put the edge of a belt between her teeth and was holding her head between his hands, shouting at him.

What was he saying?

_“Arcade! What does she need? What does she need?”_ Vulpes’ voice was near begging as he stared at him. It seemed muddy, distant.

Who was he talking about? Something in his hands twitched and he looked down.

“Air,” he said, not sure where the words were coming from. “Get her out into the open air. She has to see the sky.”

They were standing and before he could realize his feet had moved they were all out in the open air. Purple clouds fluttered across a blue-green-yellow-red sky as the sun set somewhere very far away.

Somehow he needed the air as much as Six did.

Vulpes was leaning down over her, holding his belt tight across her teeth, reminding her over and over that she was alive, that she wasn’t allowed to die on his watch while she still bore the Mark of Caesar, that he would kill any demon he had to to ensure her safe passage to his master because that’s what the man bade him do.

Something with the scene was very, very wrong. Arcade dropped back down beside her and took her hands in his, and slowly the two of them brought her back to reality. Her sobs made his blood cold, or maybe it was just her tears against his shoulder as he held her.

He didn’t know how long it was until she’d finally fallen asleep, exhausted and puffy-eyed, but there was a fire crackling soft beside them as he gently laid her down against the bedroll Vulpes had offered.

“This…” Vulpes had said, looking at the woman curled up by the fire, “wasn’t what I expected.”

“What did you expect?” Arcade asked, watching her as well.

“I’m not sure. She’s the demon of the wastes, the savior of the Mojave, the fabled Courier that cheated death at his own game.” Vulpes’ teeth tore into a slice of gecko-jerky.

“She’s human.” Arcade didn’t take her eyes off her. With a heavy sigh he shook his head. “She’s human, and we all forget that. Even she does.”

“She can’t afford to be human.”

“What, like you?” Arcade snapped, turning on the man. He tried not to remember that this man had done a better job of pulling her out of a panic attack than he had, that this man had given up his bedroll to give her a place to sleep, that this man had shared his food and water with them both now. Tried only to think about the atrocities that he’d committed, the hundreds or perhaps even thousands of men he’d murdered. That any kind gesture could not be trusted. That the timer had stopped blinking and there still wasn’t anyone else around for miles.

Vulpes smirked. Somehow it was more irritating than any verbal response Arcade could have imagined.

“She’s not going to be like you,” Arcade hissed. He didn’t want to wake her. “I won’t let her.”

Vulpes shook his head. “I don’t think you can stop her.”

“Just because—”

“I mean no insult or disrespect,” Vulpes said, raising a hand cutting off his rebuttal. “I don’t think I could change her actions either, no matter how hard I work at it. She is unshakable. She is, as you said, incredibly human.”

Arcade’s unspoken words hung in the air from his still-open mouth. He forced it shut. As much as he didn’t want to think about it, Vulpes was right. She was stubborn and didn’t listen, like the rebellious punk of a teenager she was. He shut his eyes hard.

“How can someone so young have suffered so much and still have all the world clawing at her for more?” Arcade asked, not really expecting an answer. “She’s not even eighteen. I don’t even know if she’s _seventeen_ yet.”

“Is that why you help her?” Vulpes asked.

Arcade frowned, breathing in deep through his nose as though the answer might be in the air with it. “I don’t know. I guess I just hurt for her. I forget that she hasn’t had as long as us to understand the ways of the world. Of the Mojave. Who even knows where she’s from? What if she carried that chip all the way from New New York? Or the Democratic Republic of Florida? Or Montana?”

“It matters little where she came from,” Vulpes says, as though this is the most obvious thing in the world. “She’s here now, she remembers nothing else.”

Arcade’s expression tightened, engraving it into the muscles. He tried to name them all: platysma, mentalis, depressor labii inferioris, depressor anguli oris, levator anguli oris—

“Unless,” Vulpes continued, scrutinizing Arcade’s expression, “you’re suggesting she _does_ remember something…”

But Arcade wasn’t saying anything at all. Risorius, zygomaticus major, zygomaticus minor…

A silence passed between them, but neither man moved. Arcade was intent on not allowing himself to sleep while in the presence of a Legionary, and the Legionary seemed unwilling to sleep while anyone else was awake either.

“What are you thinking?” Vulpes asked.

Arcade looked up. The man’s gaze lingered on the dying fire, bathing him in a soft bronze glow that reminded Arcade of a chiseled Greek statue. He cast the thought away, sure that Vulpes didn’t want to hear about it.

“I’m naming the muscles of the back.”

“Oh?” Vulpes actually sounded interested. No one ever sounded interested when Arcade said something like this.

“Yes. I started with the face, then the rest of the head, then the neck and shoulders, and now I’m on to the back.”

“And you do this for..?”

There it was. The amusement muddled with confusion.

“It clears my head. And it’s good to remember. I am a doctor, after all, even if I suck at it.”

Vulpes huffed a quiet laugh, a softer sound than Arcade had assumed a man so harsh and cold could make. “Name them, then.”

Arcade straightened, grabbing one of his wrists and squeezing hard to keep the blood flowing properly. “Latissimus dorsi, serratus anterior, serratus posterior, external oblique, internal oblique, erector spinae…”

“You were taught well,” Vulpes interjected. “Your Latin is very sharp.”

Arcade half-heartedly tried to suppress a laugh. “I suppose that actually means something coming from you.”

“Do all Followers learn Latin?” Vulpes asked. He poked at the fire and it flared between them.

“No, most of them figure it’s a waste of time. Just the doctors and the linguists. And the doctors only do it out of necessity for the most part. All the old textbooks we use to teach each other are filled with it.” He didn’t like to think about the linguists. Most of the Followers didn’t. If they didn’t remind anyone no one remembered that Caesar had been one. “I learned it before choosing to become a doctor. It just called to me.”

“Ipsa scientia potestas est,” Vulpes said. “Experientia docet, sed potestas intellegere est.” [Knowledge itself is power; experience teaches, but to understand is power.]

Arcade grinned. “I suppose language and word choice are critical to your work. You _would_ appreciate them, then.”

Vulpes nodded, eyes closed.

“Sorry, no one ever really cares that I know any Latin. It’s not particularly in fashion at the moment. Not that I can be particularly fashionable at this age anyway. It’s a fast life in the wasteland.”

“It would be valued in the Legion,” Vulpes said calmly.

Arcade couldn’t help but scowl. The word made his skin crawl.

“Few in the Legion have any sort of mastery of the language. Only Caesar himself and a few others. Those who take the initiative to learn it well are often given positions of power,” Vulpes continued, as though he hadn’t heard anything. “You could earn the same.”

“Thanks, but no thanks. I’m not looking to join the slavery bandwagon.” Arcade’s nose crinkled up in disgust.

Vulpes shrugged, his passive expression unchanged. “You cannot blame me for trying.”

It was true, Arcade knew. He’d be doing the same if he thought it would make any difference. “I know.”

 


	3. Chapter 3

This was not how it was supposed to happen. Arcade cringed mentally every time he remembered who it was that they were traveling with. The list of cringe-worthy aspects of Vulpes Inculta grew daily.

Vulpes knew Six’s greatest weakness. He seemed to think that she would side with the Legion, for who knew what reasons. He was a decent partner for conversation. He appreciated Arcade’s unique knowledge and skill set. He often appeared to be human, though not necessarily humane. Perhaps worst of all, he had not acknowledged the soul-mate timer at all since the first night traveling together.

None of them had mentioned any of the events of that night at all. Not the timer, Six’s panic attack, Vulpes’ knowledge of how to handle someone in a seizure, the commonality of Latin between them. Nothing.

It built up under Arcade’s skin like a burning itch, infectiously creeping to the forefront of his mind every time he thought he’d pushed it back for good.

They were a day away from Cottonwood Cove, where a man named Lucullus would ferry them to the Fort so that Six could meet with Caesar. Six was asleep, again; it seemed so bold of her to sleep with such an obvious threat so close. _The wolf guarding the sheep_ , Arcade thought with a smirk.

Vulpes looked up at the quiet, half-laugh, cocking his head to the side so slightly the movement was barely visible.

_No,_ the Arcade’s own thoughts countered, _the **fox** guarding the sheep. The **wolf** is sleeping. The wolf can take care of herself, but the sheep has a habit of messing things up for her. It’s the damn sheep that needs watching._

Vulpes quirked an eyebrow as Arcade tried and failed to stifle his laughter.

“A fox, a wolf, and a sheep all walk into a bar,” Arcade said, trying not to giggle.

Vulpes frowned. He stayed silent long enough that Arcade thought he might have missed the analogy. But it was only a moment before he smirked and said, “impossible; the fox doesn’t drink.”

“Not even when offered one?” Arcade asked. He hadn’t meant to, but the question was out there now and there was no going back from it.

Vulpes straightened, and Arcade instantly regretted not keeping his mouth in check with his brain.

“I’m sorry, you—”

“It depends on who offers,” Vulpes said, his tone honest and casual. “As a Frumentarius I do what is necessary to complete a task. If alcohol is necessary to blend in, I will drink.”

“But you don’t like to?”

“It diminishes control over the self, wastes good coin, and leaves the drinker feeling ill the next day. No, I do not like to.”

It was a more blunt response than Arcade had expected, but not a bad one. “At least I know I’ll never see you pounding rounds of Fixer at the clinic,” he said.

“You wouldn’t. You’d see whatever I wanted you to see,” Vulpes said, his tone still the same absurd casual that didn’t seem to suit the legend around him.

“That’s oddly comforting.” Arcade’s voice dripped with sarcasm. He’s missed his native language, but was afraid to use it too much with the Legionary. Too much sarcasm could make most anyone dislike him, and he didn’t want a high-ranking member of a notorious slaving army to dislike him.

This time it was Vulpes’ turn to laugh. “You’ve already seen far more of me than is wise.”

“Wise for who? For me or for you?”

“Both,” Vulpes admitted.

They watched each other, unsure of who was the greater threat. Vulpes had the sharper tongue but Arcade had bigger fists. Neither of them needed to rely on these traits however; Arcade would berate himself with self-depreciating humor until he had beaten himself into submission, while Vulpes could slip quietly into any crowd he chose in the blink of an eye.

A sleepy grumble from Six startled Arcade back into reality.

“You should sleep too,” Vulpes said, staring down through the ground between his feet. “It would be in your best interests to appear strong at the Fort. There will be less trouble for everyone that way. You may also want to appear a bit more… personally attached to the Courier. Restless Legionaries are less likely to tangle with what they view as claimed.”

Arcade snorted. “My _persuasion_ isn’t exactly a secret. You can tell it from a mile off. I’d be surprised if there isn’t a welcome party when we get there holding a banner that reads ‘Welcome Courier and Fagot’ or something along those lines.” He didn’t bother to hide the bitterness in his tone.

Vulpes eyes darkened with disgust. Arcade was about to say that the Legion wasn’t known for its polite conversations when Vulpes surprised him with, “not all members of the Legion are intolerant bigots, you should know. Personally, I do not stand for such language among my Frumentarii. I’ve lashed a man myself for using it.”

The fact that Vulpes had referred to at least some Legionaries as bigots did not escape Arcade as he tried to process everything Vulpes had just said.

“You said ‘unfortunately,’” Arcade said quietly.

Vulpes blinked, not immediately making the connection. It had been nearly a week since that first night, anyway. The realization was evident in his softened features when it hit. “I did.”

“Then you aren’t against it?” Hope pushed Arcade’s voice ever upward. Then he frowned, realizing that hope of that sort wasn’t something he wanted to feel in regards to this man.

“No.” Vulpes voice was quiet. There was no trace of the devilish fox in the quiet, slumped frame of a man sitting across from Arcade.

“Oh… oh you’ve… you’ve never had the chance to decide for yourself exactly what you are,” Arcade said.

Silence was Vulpes’ only response. No change in expression, no counter-argument or question. It was too personal; neither knew what to say next.

“I’m sorry,” Arcade muttered. “Shouldn’t have said anything.”

“My life has been to serve the Legion. I have no regrets in this.”

“How long have you been with them?” Arcade’s voice was soft like he was speaking to a child.

Vulpes thought a moment before answering. “Since I was about eight.”

“And now you’re..?” He almost didn’t want to know.

“I can’t say for certain. Perhaps… twenty-three or twenty-four years.”

Arcade could feel his shoulders drop as his eyes widened. “Twenty-three or twenty-four?”

“I may be wrong,” Vulpes added, raising his eyebrows in thought. “I am fairly certain that I was around twenty at the First Battle for Hoover Dam, but I might have been as young as seventeen. It is… difficult to say.” He shrugged, crossing his arms around his knees. “There were many years of training. For most of them, one day blended into the next.”

“You’re…” Arcade trailed off thinking about it, then coughed to cover his pause. “You’re much younger than I expected.”

“Much younger than you expected Vulpes Inculta to be?” Vulpes asked. “Or much younger than you expected to find at the end of your timer?”

Arcade froze, every muscle in his body yearning to forget the question. Still, Vulpes’ eyes burned into him through the fire between them. It was a valid question, just not one that Arcade wanted to think about.

“Both, I guess…” He fiddled with his glasses, trying to clean them with the end of his shirt but ended up dropping them instead. “You’re just very young to have… accomplished… so much. And I’m, I mean, it depends on how old you are. If you’re twenty-four I’m still twelve years older than you. And if you’re…” paused, counting the math out on his fingers. “…twenty-one, then I’m a full fifteen years older than you.”

Vulpes gazed up at the stars above them, barely visible through the haze drifting around Camp Searchlight. “Yes, I suppose that’s true.”

“Doesn’t that…” Again, Arcade didn’t want to know the answer. “Isn’t that… _weird_ to you?”

“Age is irrelevant when lives are so short. In war, age only decides whether ethics will allow you to fight.”

“Are you always thinking about the war?”

Vulpes laughed lightly. “I am a soldier.”

“Still, don’t you like to think about other things?”

“Of course, but would you have me divorce myself from it for the sake of a passing whim?”

When did he start to care so much about what Vulpes thought about? And why did hearing him say “passing whim” make him so angry?


	4. Chapter 4

Arcade spoke little as they approached Cottonwood Cove, and less once the cursor Lucullus began their trip up to the Fort. Everything was wrong and he wanted nothing to do with it. Six had dragged him into this mess knowing that Arcade would have been very happy to never hear Caesar’s name again, and _seeing_ the man was certainly never on his bucket list. Then there was Vulpes.

He couldn’t help but scowl every time the remembered words “passing whim” floated through his mind. Vulpes’ eyes burned into him, but Arcade refused to turn to meet them. _What the hell does he want anyway?_

If the Fort had been something like what Arcade expected, he might have liked it more. Men trained in groups of ten, in pairs, against training dummies by themselves. The only place where women could be seen were near the cooking pits and the medic tents. It was the only place of healing that Arcade had ever seen more understaffed and understocked than the Follower’s Clinic at the Old Mormon Fort back home in Freeside. Aside from the few at the entrance, there were no crosses.

There were no screams, no obvious signs of the torturous, barbaric things he’d heard about the Legion. What scared him the most was that it reminded him of an NCR encampment, with better discipline. _Oh the irony._

It only made him angrier as he followed Six following Vulpes up to Caesar’s tent. Legionaries stared at him as they passed, looking away only when he met their curious gazes with a glare of his own. None moved to intercept them.

“You’ll have to wait here while the Courier meets with Caesar,” one of the men outside Caesar’s tent said, a hand on his arm. Arcade rolled his eyes. _Of course._

He nodded and stepped back from the tent flap, but not before catching a glimpse of the fabled man inside. For all the things said about him, Caesar looked remarkably human – and much older and more tired than Arcade would have thought.

“Sorry,” Six said, hardly sounding sorry at all. “Rules are rules.”

“Oh you go on ahead, I’ll just wait here and admire the view,” Arcade said, crossing his arms. “The rocks, the sand, the _really big_ rocks…”

Six laughed and stepped through the tent flap she still held open with one arm.

Lucullus had ferried them up the river for nearly the whole day, and the sun was starting to set over the water West of the Fort. He didn’t want to spend the night here. Even worse was the thought of Six spending the night here; she was so young, soft in all the places these men would want. A shiver ran through him and he pushed the thought away.

Beneath him, hundreds of men mixed in between a sea of red tents and blood-stained sand. Cheers shouted up from a make-shift arena and the sound of plates clattering and fires crackling all jumbled into a cacophony that felt far too similar to an average night in Freeside.

Revulsion twisted up in his gut, but he pushed it back down.

Laughter drifted through the tent flap behind him, and then Six was again in front of him.

“It’s a key,” she said, a ridiculous grin on her face.

“What’s a key?” he asked.

“The chip. The chip is a goddamn key.”

“Oh. That’s…” Arcade frowned. “There has to be more to it. Otherwise any old poker chip could do it. Whatever _it_ is. What’s this key for?”

“That’s what I’m about to go find out,” she said, slipping the chip down the front of her shirt.

Arcade’s shoulders set as he cracked his neck to one side, then the other. “Well, let’s get going then.”

“No,” she said flatly. “I don’t know what’s down there. You’re staying put.”

“That doesn’t sound—”

“Follow Vulpes. We’re staying in his tent tonight. Don’t wait up for me, I don’t know how long this will take,” she said, reaching a hand up to his shoulder. “Get some sleep already.” She grinned, knowingly. Was it really that obvious that he hadn’t been sleeping?

Arcade was certain that his face would soon become permanently stuck in a scowl, like his mother had always said when he was little. He finally gave in and glanced over to Vulpes, who stood patiently beside him. “Lead the way,” Arcade said with a sweeping gesture of his hand.

The pair navigated a sea of tents until they were at the back of the encampment. Not far above them was Caesar’s tent, easily in scrambling distance if someone felt compelled to climb up the rocks. Vulpes lead him into a larger, tan tent surrounded by several of the standard red tents the recruits used. Most of them were filled with Legionaries speaking in hushed voices.

“My Frumentarii,” Vulpes said in a quiet voice by way of explanation. “I prefer to have them nearby so that I can send them out on a moment’s notice.”

“Oh, wonderful,” Arcade muttered, looking over the group. He wanted to memorize their faces, but all were hidden in shadow.

Vulpes pushed through into the tent first, holding the flap open for Arcade to step through. It was surprisingly well furnished, for a tent. A table cluttered with maps and papers with a chair nearby, a bookshelf covered with books in various stages of decay, a full-sized wardrobe beside a pair of footlockers. A large bed with red sheets.

“I have already offered the Courier my bed, but she made it plain that you are welcome to share it as well,” Vulpes said. His hands were behind his back, muscles twitching in his arms.

“You can’t just drop into a man’s bed uninvited,” Arcade said with a half-hearted laugh.

Vulpes raised an eyebrow and smirked. “If you would prefer, I can have a bedroll brought here for you,” he said glancing to the floor beside the tent flap where a bedroll already lay. “But, you are welcome to use the bed, should you desire.”

Arcade flushed and looked away. “It’s fine. I’ll just sleep on the ground. It’ll be no different than the rest of the week.”

“Nonsense.”

“Well it’s true.” He didn’t have the energy to argue.

Vulpes slipped back outside for a moment, and Arcade heard him bark an order to someone before returning. Arcade tried not to think about the slaves wandering the camp, but trying only made him think about them more.

“Where are you gonna sleep?” he asked. _Wait, I didn’t mean it like that._

“I will be sleeping at the entrance to the tent. While I trust my own men, I don’t trust most of the other young men here.”

Arcade blinked hard. “You mean they would try to get into an officer’s tent just to—”

“Yes,” Vulpes said, his voice plain. “They are young men. They have desires.”

“You’re young.” He hadn’t meant to say it.

Vulpes laughed, a real, deep laugh unlike Arcade had heard or expected from him. “But I am disciplined. I know better than to tangle with someone Caesar is interested in.”

_Why do I keep talking? I need to stop talking._

He quickly moved to the bookshelf, trying to make it obvious that he was admiring the titles. “That’s a lot of books for a soldier to have.” _I’m still talking._

“Scientia potestas est,” Vulpes echoed, the Latin falling crisp and smooth like fresh hard-cider. _Why did I make that comparison?_

As Arcade’s eyes scanned the shelf he noticed title after title jumping out at him. Books on mythology and the pre-war occult were scattered throughout endless histories, textbooks on sciences and mechanics, on politics. A particularly faded and worn, though clean, book stood out: a tan spine, a faded blue stripe.

“The Odyssey?” Arcade asked, failing at hiding the surprise in his voice as it jumped upward. He gently lifted it from the shelf, holding it like the treasure it was. “I haven’t seen one of these in… It’s in Greek.”

Vulpes smiled at the shock on his face. Arcade looked back and forth from the man to the foreign words on the page.

“πάντες ἄνθρωποι τοῦ εἰδέναι ὀρέγονται φύσει,” Vulpes said, his voice quiet and low. The smirk he wore only grew.

“You know Greek.”

Vulpes nodded. The vulpine smile so suited him. _Maybe that’s where the name’s from, that damn grin._

“Oh.” Arcade’s brow furrowed in thought. “That was… Aristotle? I could be wrong. I gave up on Greek. I was worse at Greek than I was at Latin.”

Again, Vulpes nodded. “ _All men by nature desire to know_. I am no different, except that I am perhaps more persistent than most.”

“Still,” Arcade said, carefully closing the book and setting it back on the shelf in the bare spot it had left behind, “I wouldn’t have expected you to have it. And if you did, I wouldn’t have assumed you’d keep it right here with the books you use most often.”

“What is to say I don’t use it often?” Vulpes said, his head tilting to the side. He sat down on one end of the bed, facing Arcade. His arm rested on one propped knee.

Shaking his head slightly, Arcade looked back to the shelf. “Nothing, I suppose. I just… How often _do_ you use it then?”

Vulpes laughed and ran a hand through his hair. Dark circles had formed under his eyes that Arcade hadn’t noticed earlier. Lines peppered his face as he thought out his answer to the question; Vulpes looked far too worn and tired to be so young.

“Not often enough,” Vulpes settled on, fisting his hand in his hair. His gaze landed on the canvas wall of the tent, then wandered straight on through it. “It was how I learned Greek in the first place. It… has a special place in my life. I try to look at it each time I am here. Too often I just don’t have the time.”

“You don’t seem busy right now,” Arcade said, confused.

The grin on Vulpes face reached up into his eyes as he closed them. “You aren’t exactly an authority on what I am known to do with my time. You have seen me for all of a week, returning home at the end of a successful mission. You have caught me in a rare moment when I am yet without work for myself.”

Arcade laughed bitterly, trying not to think about the ‘work’ Vulpes referred to. “And you get to spend it with me. Lucky you.”

Vulpes stayed silent, studying the doctor. It made Arcade’s skin tingle.

“I’m sorry. Self-depreciating humor has always been my specialty.”

“You company is not unpleasant.”

The sounds of voices outside the tent had died down. No more clattering of plates, not even the shouts from the arena broke the night. Only the crackling of fires, the rustling of tents in the soft breeze.

“That might be one of the nicest things anyone’s ever said to me,” Arcade said, a meek, lopsided grin creeping onto his face. He wondered suddenly how often Vulpes was given compliments, even weak ones, that didn’t pertain to his work. Had he even received any before?

_Of course he has. Some unwitting NCR trooper is bound to have remarked on the way his grey eyes shimmer when he smiles._ Arcade frowned. Where had that come from?

He turned back to the bookshelf. “May I?”

“Of course.”

Arcade picked up a book at random: a translation of some of Tacitus’ histories. _Eugh._ Still, it was sure to make him want to sleep. He sat down with the book in the chair at the table, laying it out across papers he was sure he shouldn’t look closer at. Not sure where to start, he allowed the book to fall open to whatever page it liked, and began to read.

_…possessed, too, as he was of huge bodily strength and skill in arms, had made Nero, who was always timid and now more frightened than ever by the lately discovered conspiracy, fearful of a sudden attack. So the centurion, having barred every exit from the house, disclosed the emperor's orders to Ostorius. That fortitude which he had often shown in fighting the enemy Ostorius now turned against himself. And as his veins, though severed, allowed but a scanty flow of blood, he used the help of a slave, simply to hold up a dagger firmly, and then pressing the man's hand towards him, he met the point with his throat…_

(** Tacitus’ Annals, Book XVI.)


	5. Chapter 5

A hand on his shoulder caused him to jump; his glasses were askew and half the world was blurry, and his head felt heavy like he hadn’t slept in weeks. He quickly righted the lenses, almost knocking them clear off his face in his hurry instead, and the world came into clearer view.

Vulpes stood in front of him, his hand still on Arcade’s shoulder. With his other hand, he gestured for Arcade to remain quiet, then pointed behind him.

Carefully, Arcade turned, only to see Six sprawled out across the bed. She was wearing her favorite sleepwear, a red satin pair of men’s pajamas, but seemed totally normal.

_Oh. Wait. She’s back. And she’s asleep. And I was asleep. In a chair. Ow._ His back was sore from the odd angle he’d fallen into, and a cracking sound came from his neck as he straightened it. A yawn forced his mouth so wide his eyes nearly shut. Vulpes let go of his shoulder.

Blinking his vision as clear as he could, Arcade looked around and saw that a second bedroll had in fact appeared. Both were still rolled up at the foot of the bed, but Vulpes moved towards them. The man silently picked it up and, with a practiced movement, grabbed the end and flung it so that it unrolled lazily on its own.

_Neat trick._ Arcade looked at the second, not entirely sure where to set it up, but sure that he didn’t want to wake Six so that she could share her ( _no not her, Vulpes’)_ bed with a homosexual man that was more than twice her age. Even if she wouldn’t care, he did.

He stood, feeling dizzy as blood rushed through to his limbs, and stretched his arms out. A popping sound put his shoulder back into place, a crunch and the ache in his spine dulled.

With slow, heavy steps he drifted across to the second bedroll and picked it up. He could lay it out alongside the bed, but it might leave Six feeling trapped. He slammed his eyes shut hard to force away the memory, trying to think louder to block it away. There wasn’t enough room at the end of the bed in amongst the footlockers. The middle of the tent space was open, but he was sure that would get in the way somehow.

Resigning himself, he set the roll down a few feet from Vulpes’ own. Neither man spoke as he unrolled it. An accidental glance informed him that Vulpes had stripped down to his just boxers. _Well, it is **his** tent anyway. _

Arcade gently set his glasses on the table anyway before shrugging off his signature Followers lab-coat and draping it over the back of the chair. He pulled off his boots and ragged socks as well, but hesitated as he reached for the top button of his shirt. His hands fell back to his side.

When he turned back around, he saw that there was now a thin blanket folded neatly at one end of the bedroll. Vulpes was stretched out under a similar one on his own. A sigh of relief escape his lips, though he wasn’t sure why.

He stretched out under the blanket, his feet hanging off the end of the bedroll. It was something he hardly even noticed anymore; he was always too tall. A rock jabbed into the heel of his foot.

“Sorry I stole your chair,” Arcade said quietly. Six was a fairly heavy sleeper, but he didn’t want to risk waking her.

“Tacitus will do it to anyone,” Vulpes said with a wry grin, keeping his voice quiet as well. “Which is, I assume, why you chose it?”

“Pretty much,” Arcade said. He grinned lazily, staring up at the roof of the tent. It swayed softly under the wind.

“I wasn’t entirely sure I should wake you. You’ve slept little this past week, but I know what that chair does to _my_ back.”

“My aging spine thanks you, though my ego is less sure,” said Arcade. “And not all of us are able to stay up for weeks at a time.”

“I am not the best at sleeping in the presence of others even in the most trusted of company,” Vulpes said, his voice quieter than before. “You must understand that traveling with unknowns makes such things little easier.”

Well, it wasn’t exactly the response he’d expected. Not that he was sure what he expected either. “Why are you still in the Legion?” Arcade asked, his voice soft. It wasn’t really meant as an insult so much as it was an honest question.

Vulpes sighed, running a hand through his hair. “It is what I was raised into.”

“But you’re… you seem so much smarter than that. You know that being raised into something isn’t a reason to stay there, not always.” Arcade tried to shut his eyes to the memories that flooded into his mind, but they persisted. Tired as he was, he didn’t have the energy to pry them wide open instead.

Silence followed. Arcade almost felt bad trying to pressure Vulpes out of the Legion, but was more confused that he was even trying. What did it matter? Though having someone as smart as Vulpes at least appeared to be being in the Legion wasn’t good by any means, it wasn’t as though his leaving would even noticeably change the course of the war. More than likely it would only end with Vulpes’ death, and probably the death of whoever convinced him into leaving.

Vulpes’ voice startled Arcade in the darkness; he hadn’t expected a response at that point. “Just before my father died, he told me that loyalty and honor were the only things a man can _really_ be worth. His loyalty, and his honor. There is little honor in what I have become here, a master of spies, of lies and deceit.”

Arcade sighed. “So you’ve made up for it as best you can with loyalty.”

Again there was no response.

“Can I ask how he died?” Arcade prodded. He wasn’t sure why he kept asking questions, especially when he was sure he didn’t really even want answers. _It’s just conversation. Grim conversation._

No answer.

“My father died long before I can remember. It was always just my mother and I. Well not just us. There were others. But not people related to me. No other family, er, real family,” Arcade said, fumbling as the words fell too fast from his lips. “He was killed…by a thing. It exploded. He was killed by it exploding. That’s honestly all I’ve ever really been told though.”

The slow, steady intake of breath through the nose, coming soft back out Vulpes’ mouth wasn’t angry, just heavy with memory. Again, a deep breath. “He was beheaded by Caesar when the Legion conquered the tribe we lived in.”

“Oh. Oh. I’m sorry. I should have figured, I just didn’t. I’m sorry. But… I’m sorry, you said he was beheaded? Not crucified?” Arcade wasn’t sure what to think of that. “I though the Legion just crucified everyone they didn’t take on as recruits.”

Vulpes laughed, the sound dry and bitter with age as though it was something he had thought about too often. “Often we do. It sends a message to the profligates that we do not take _no_ for an answer. My father spoke to Caesar when the tribe lost its fight with the Legion though, and Caesar respected him for his loyalty. He saw fit to give him a quick death instead of days filled with agony.”

“What did he say that Caesar liked?” Arcade rolled onto his side, finally looking at Vulpes, using his own elbow for a pillow. Something that could make Caesar give a quick death was worth knowing about. His words lingered in the air a moment; Arcade was sure Vulpes knew what was running through his head.

“He asked Caesar if the men of the Legion would lay down their lives in service to him, to the Legion.” Vulpes dropped the fist from his hair, letting it rest palm up on his forehead. “When my Lord Caesar said ‘yes,’ my father said that he would then surely understand why he could not join the Legion. That he had to die for his people, just as Legionaries would die for the Legion.”

“That’s brave,” Arcade said. He didn’t want to offend Vulpes on what was obviously a sensitive topic, so he left off the part about it being stupid. Though, if the only options were ‘join the Legion’ and ‘or die,’ he was pretty sure he himself would have picked ‘or die.’

“It is what it is,” Vulpes said flatly.

“Do you ever wish…” Arcade trailed off, not sure he really wanted to ask the question. _I need to stop talking._

Vulpes sighed again and pinched the bridge of his nose. “It does not do to dwell in the past. My father made his choices, and I have made mine.”

Arcade closed his eyes with a grimace. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t be asking you all these personal questions. I just start talking and I don’t stop sometimes. You can tell me to stop talking if you want.”

No response came.

“But if you don’t then I’ll probably just keep talking.”

More silence.

Arcade faltered slightly. “Unless you’re asleep.”

A soft chuckle. “I am not.”

This time Arcade grinned, seeing a chance to change the subject. “Then you’re a masochist.” _Oh. Wait. I don’t know if I want to think about that either._

“Nil sine dolore est,” [nothing is without pain] Vulpes said, returning the grin with one of his own.

“That’s…” Arcade stopped and thought a moment. “Well it’s one of the better answers I could have gotten, I suppose.” His grin faded as sleep tried to wash over him. He shoved it away with a crack of his neck.

“You’re exhausted,” Vulpes commented. A simple truth.

“I can keep this up for days if I have to. You’re not the only one who’s lived life like a soldier before.” _Shut up. Shut. Up._

“I do not doubt you could.”

“If you’re going to stay up anyway, I have to. You know,” Arcade yawned, mouth stretching wide enough to make his jaw ache. “Have to keep an eye on my neck. Never know when you might want an ill-humored medic that’s fluent in Latin to keep in your corner.”

The fox’s grin softened, taking in the fading of Arcade’s consciousness. Arcade could feel the burn of Vulpes’ eyes on his own, his face, his neck – pulse, his chest – breathing slow. “I would not take you as a slave.”

“I figure if I keep talking about myself no one will want me as a slave. I’m relying on that fact,” Arcade said dryly. He shuddered at the thought of a bomb-collar strapped to his neck, forcing another yawn from his lips.

“No man will take you as their slave if I can help it,” Vulpes said, his voice grave. He was serious, completely serious, judging by the silently raging mercury of his eyes. Even with the tent so dark, Arcade could see it plainly.

“Thank you.” He wasn’t sure what else to say. “That… that doesn’t matter much in the grand scheme of things, but… it matters a whole lot to me.” A silence whispered through the tent, creeping along Arcade’s skin as he stretched his arms up and his legs out. “Though it scares me that I believe you…”

“Dormi,” [sleep] Vulpes commanded. He spoke so softly Arcade was almost sure it was the wind.

He didn’t hesitate.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You may have already noticed I'm building a much softer Vulpes than I normally do. Than most anyone normally does. For the purposes of this fic he needs to be much more malleable than usual, but he's still definitely Vulpes. There's a lot going on here.

Morning came too soon over the Mojave. Arcade was sure he could have slept for days, if Six’s prods hadn’t woken him up.

“Hey.” A jab in his ribs. “Hey.” Another. “ _Hey._ Arcade. Wakey-wakey. Come on, I need to get going.”

Arcade groaned and rolled over, staring up at the blurred image of Six’s smiling face – bright and bubbly as ever. Somehow the garish wasteland gore never seemed to affect her. It was one of the things that drew Arcade to her.

“What, did I miss breakfast?” Arcade said with a sleepy yawn.

Six laughed and handed him his glasses. “Pip-boy says it’s nearly 11:00, so I’d guess you did.”

Arcade groaned again and slid the ancient glasses up his nose. “All right, I’ll pack up and we can hit the old dusty trail.”

Six bit her lip. “I think… I think it would be best if we parted ways for now.”

“Oh.”

“It’s nothing personal,” Six rushed, the words crushing up against each other. “I’m just going to go somewhere that’s kind of hard to get to, and I don’t want you getting hurt along the way.”

Arcade grinned half-heartedly. “I thought my infinite charm could win you over for good, but I guess it just wasn’t meant to be. Should I bother to ask where you’re headed?”

Six stood and picked up her rucksack from the end of the bed. “Thought I’d head North, check out the Air Force Base.”

The blood drained from Arcade’s face. He jumped to his feet, intent on rushing over to her, but his vision swam as a light-headed daze gripped him. “That’s…” he spread his feet for balance and gripped his head in his hands, forcing the daze to clear. “That’s Boomer territory!”

“So I’ve heard,” she said, her tone casual. She fiddled with something on her Pip-boy that Arcade couldn’t see.

“Six… Nobody gets in to there, not—” he cut himself off and rephrased, not wanting to set her off into an attack. “It’s suicide. They’re called Boomers for a reason.”

With a gin, Six laughed and turned around. “I know. Should prove challenging.”

“Six…”

“My mind is decided. And you aren’t coming with me. It’ll be enough for me to avoid their bombardment on my own without you squealing around behind me,” she teased, poking him in the chest with her finger.

He frowned and crossed his arms. “I don’t like it.”

“I knew you wouldn’t, but it’s how it has to be.” She pushed past him and out through the tent flap.

He followed, but stopped in the bright daylight that met him. _I’m in Caesar’s Fort._ It wasn’t exactly every day he woke up there, and the shock of it left him feeling cold.

“What am I supposed to do then?” he asked, still standing at the edge of the tent.

She turned back to face him. “Vulpes said you can stay here a day if you need to get your bearings on what you want to do,” she said, walking backwards as she spoke. “I’ll meet you back in Freeside in about a month!”

Arcade sighed, frustrated but knowing there was nothing he could do. Six was her own person, even if she was too young. “Fine. I’ll be back at the Old Mormon Fort. Just swing by if you need me.”

Six smiled and scampered off down the path towards the main gate, waving over her shoulder.

“It’s not as if I have anything better to do,” Arcade muttered, walking back into the tent.

It was mercifully darker inside; the Mojave sun had never been good for his skin. Part of him wanted to pack up now and just leave, but he knew it wasn’t that simple now. Even if he wanted to, with Six already bounding down towards the gate, he couldn’t leave. The only way out was by the ferry. The ferry that Six would be taking in the next few moments.

He was stuck. At least until the next day. The ferry would only make the trip up and down the Colorado once per day.

“You look troubled.”

Arcade jumped, looking around the room. Vulpes was standing at his bookshelf, gazing towards him. He held an open book in one hand, a finger paused on the page.

“Sorry. I didn’t see you come in.” _How does he do that? Was he in here the whole time?_

“I am a Frumentarius, remember,” he said, flashing a bright grin. “I slipped in while you and the Courier were talking outside.

“That was seconds ago!” Arcade stared, wild-eyed.

“I know. It was ample time to walk inside behind you.” Vulpes turned back to his book, still smirking slightly.

“Maybe I need glasses that aren’t two hundred years old,” he said, taking them off and wiping them with the end of his shirt. It felt stale against his skin, but he was sure none of his other clothes were any better. “So I guess I’m rooming with you for another night whether I like it or not? Not that I don’t. Er. I mean it’s not my first choice. Not that there’s something wrong with you. I mean you’re in the Legion, but. I mean. I wonder what it’s like outside. How about I go check?” Arcade turned to leave, but Vulpes’ hand was on his arm.

Vulpes raised an eyebrow at Arcade’s reddened face. “You are welcome to stay here, or elsewhere, but yes. The Cursor will be back late this evening and will not leave again for Cottonwood until the morning tomorrow.”

“Your hand’s on my arm,” Arcade said, only half hearing what Vulpes said.

“So it is,” Vulpes said with a soft laugh. Though the grip on Arcade’s arm was gentle, he saw that Vulpes knuckles were white against the closed book he held. Vulpes let go of him, straightening up.

“What are you reading?” Anything to change the subject.

“An old medical textbook,” Vulpes said, walking back to his desk.

“Oh! Anything I can help with?” Arcade said, then frowned. _I just offered my medical assistance to a Legionary._

“No…” Vulpes said, hesitating. “Not at the moment. If further services are required, I may ask. But for now this is purely research.”

“Oh. All right. Well, I’ll just sit over here then,” Arcade said, not at all upset that his services had been rejected. He flopped down on the end of the bed, rolling up the bedroll he’d used the night before.

“Where will you be going tomorrow?” Vulpes asked quickly, shutting the book again and turning in his chair to face Arcade.

“Oh, I dunno. I figured I’d just head back to the Fort. The Mormon one. Not this one.” He really had to start calling it something else.

Vulpes sighed, staring at the ground intently.

“What’s bothering you? I’ve never seen you this obviously… anything, really,” Arcade said, frowning. _Is this some trap?_

“The Courier… has asked a favor of me.”

“Oh?” Arcade wasn’t sure he liked where this was going.

Vulpes didn’t answer, still staring at the dirt. There were gears turning in his mind, questions and answers firing one after another as scenarios played out before him. Arcade didn’t envy how much the man had to think about.

“I will be escorting you out of our territory. If you would prefer I can take you as far as Camp McCarran,” he said, still not looking up. His eyes were set, expression hard.

“Oh,” Arcade said quietly. Now it was his turn to look down; he stared at his hands, picking dirt out from under his fingernails. “I didn’t think I was _that_ terrible to travel with, but—”

“You are not,” Vulpes said, relaxing into an easy smile. “Forgive me, there is much on my mind. I meant no offense.”

“O…kay?”

Vulpes stood, “I’ll some have lunch brought here for you. You are free to explore the camp should you like, but it might be best if you—”

“As much as I’d love to watch young, muscular men spend the day getting sweaty working out, I think I’ll just stay here and hope nobody remembers where Six left me,” Arcade said, cutting him off. _Sweaty men, good. Legion, bad._

“That is probably best,” Vulpes said with a nod, then turned and moved toward the tent flap. “But, I should tell you…” he said, turning back around, “while the Legion isn’t exactly in favor of homosexual relationships, most will turn a blind eye as long as sons are still born into our ranks. And none should taunt you for it, as an outsider.” He pulled back the tent flap, lingering. “If they do, I want to hear about it.” The flap fell back, and Vulpes was gone.

Arcade kept his eyes on the spot where Vulpes had stood long after he was gone. Vulpes’ choice of words stuck out in his mind. He had said “homosexual relationships” instead of just “homosexuality.” _Why?_ And why was he so interested in protecting Arcade?

And why had Six asked Vulpes to escort him back home?


	7. Chapter 7

Though Cursor Lucullus was not thrilled to bring yet another outsider on his ferry, he seemed at least relieved that Arcade was leaving the fort, rather than going to it. Regardless, he would bring Vulpes down the River Styx if asked, so Arcade’s presence was a mere annoyance rather than a burden. If the head of the Frumentarii wanted it, so it would be.

The unlikely pair had reached the outskirts of Novac by the time the sun was dropping dangerously low in the sky. Arcade’s shirt clung to him, sweat-stained and stale, even though he’d used their time on the ferry to wash it and his few others.

“What?” he’d asked, when the Cursor had made a face. “It’s not like I have anything better to do. I mean, I could talk instead, but I’m pretty sure you’d rather I do laundry. Unless you have an unhealthy interest in failed pre-war socioeconomic theories.” His laundering had been permitted. Even Vulpes had grinned from behind the pages of his book.

“I’m not so sure we should head through Novac…” Arcade looked straight into the mouth of the famous dinosaur, knowing that between its teeth would be a man who could probably read their lips through his scope. Boone, after much prodding, had told everyone at the Lucky 38 about Manny over drinks one night. If the man was as good as Boone claimed, it wouldn’t be safe to walk through with a Legionary – even one that wasn’t dressed in his Crimson.

Vulpes glanced up at the dinosaur too, removing the dark-tinted goggles that covered his eyes. “Yes, we know of the snipers. Though the Courier seems to have absconded with one, if I remember correctly.” He lowered his hand and looked back down the road from where they’d come. “The other should be no issue. It is not as though many of the Followers would travel in the company of a Legionary.”

Arcade scowled. He reminded himself, again, that at least the man wasn’t still dressed in his Legion crimson. Instead he’d gone for a lightweight leather armor, reinforced with metal in a few places. Basic, practical, non-descript.

“As though I had much choice. Six didn’t want me following her. Forcing me to stay put was a little overkill though. Did she say why?”

“Perhaps,” Vulpes said lightly, setting an easy pace for the pair to walk, “she simply preferred to know where you are, rather than where you might be.”

Arcade laughed and shook his head. “That girl wouldn’t care if I had my arm in a cazador nest as long as I dropped everything and did what she wanted when she asked.”

Still, the pair passed quietly along the edge of Novac instead of stopping to rest for the night. They munched on gecko-jerky as they walked through the cool night air. Once they had passed the town by a good distance, they moved back towards the road, but Vulpes flung an arm out in front of Arcade to stop him.

The movement caught Arcade off-guard, but he stopped with only a minor “ungh” as Vulpes reached for the rifle on his back.

They were far enough from the light of the road that the older woman seemed not to notice them as she walked on past. Arcade stared at her; her dress, white hair sticking out from under her hat, the rifle on her back.

“I know her,” Arcade whispered.

Vulpes frowned. “All the more reason to avoid her.”

“She could give us a place to sleep.”

“And yet you yourself suggested avoiding this place.”

“That woman is sharp as a vertibird blade, she’ll already have noticed us.”

“She has not stopped walking.”

“Well we’re hiding!”

“Then she would know we do not wish to be seen.”

Arcade closed his eyes, silently counting backwards from ten. This would absolutely be the end of him. If he survived this trip with even an inch of his sanity intact, it would be a miracle. Listening to Julie’s rants on how they could hug Freeside better would, somehow, actually come as a relief after all this.

_Well, maybe not that extreme._ Those rants did go on for hours.

Maybe that was why he agreed to go with Six in the first place.

“She’s gone. Let’s just keep going,” Arcade said, gritting his teeth. “The sooner we get out of here, the better.”

Vulpes said nothing, but after watching her retreating form for some minutes he finally lowered his arm. Wordlessly, he continued walking North along the edge of the road. He stayed out from under streetlights, buzzing as they glowed with the sun’s energy captured during the day. Arcade shook his head and, grudgingly, followed.

Neither made it far.

“You boys best turn around so I can see your faces,” called the old woman’s voice. “We don’t take well to folk skulking around in the dark here.”

Arcade put his hands up beside his head and turned around, cursing under his breath. As much as he wanted to stay in a decent bed, he didn’t want to explain his traveling companion either.

“Daisy, it’s me. Arcade,” he said, trying not to sound too hopeless. “Please don’t shoot me, I’ve had a long day.” Her rifle was aimed at the space between his head and Vulpes’.

“Arcade?” she asked. “Move into the light and let me look at you.”

He obliged, shuffling forward. _Of all the times, Daisy._

“Good Lord, it is you. Well what are you still doing over there, come over here and give old Daisy a hug.” She grinned widely, throwing her rifle back over her shoulder and waiting for him with her arms open.

As he walked over to her he quickly put on the best smile he could come up with, while trying to ignore the grunt of protest from Vulpes behind him.

“Oh! I see you’ve brought a friend!” Daisy said, reaching up to hug him, as Arcade was significantly taller than her.

Seeing her under the light, Arcade realized just how much older she was than the last time he’d seen her. Her body felt frail under his hands, bony and thin, and he was afraid he might crush her if he held her too hard. The way she hugged him back was just a little bit weaker than he thought she’d always done.

There were cuts and bruises on her arms that worried him, but she had always been getting into trouble pulling things apart that didn’t necessarily want to be deconstructed.

“Daisy, what’s happened to you?” he asked, stepping back from and gently taking her hands in his as he looked over her arms. “Have you been getting into trouble with something you shouldn’t?” he asked with a wry grin. It hid the concern in his gut well enough.

“Oh!” she said with a laugh, shoving him back lightly. “You know me, always breaking down bits of salvage. Got my hand on one of them SentryBots the other day. Fella that sold it to me said it was dead. Turned out he was wrong.”

“Oh.” Arcade’s eyes widened. “And it attacked you?”

“Well I got it turned back off pretty quickly. Thing was beyond repair anyway, so I stripped it down for parts. Got some interesting bits out of the firing mechanism for the missile-launcher.”

When she smiled, Arcade saw the fire still sparkling behind her eyes the same way it had when he was a child. It comforted him. _At least she’s still enjoying life out here._

“Now let’s get back inside, and you can introduce me to your friend. I’ll get y’all some supper. No sense traveling in this kind of dark. What the heck are you thinking anyway, running around in the dark like that?” she chided, setting off back down the street along the back of the Dino Dee-lite motel.

“Oh, you know, heading back up to the Fort. Mormon Fort. Old Mormon Fort,” Arcade said, stumbling over the name again. _Really, really need to call it something else._

“Been out gallivanting across the wastes?” she asked with a laugh, pushing open the door to her room on the second floor of the motel.

“I suppose you could say that,” he said, rubbing the back of his neck as Vulpes stepped in behind him and shut the door. “This is…” Vulpes hadn’t mentioned what he wanted to be introduced as if something like this happened. But then, he also hadn’t bothered to mention to Vulpes that he knew anyone currently living in Novac.

“James,” Vulpes said, grinning and reaching out to shake hands with Daisy. “James Fox. I’m a traveler heading back up to Freeside. Ran into ‘Cade here all the way out at the Hub. Found out we were heading to the same place, thought we may’swell travel together. Good to have company on the road.”

_Brilliant. At least he’s got our story worked out. Whoever he is._

_He just called me ‘Cade._

Daisy grinned, accepting the proffered hand. “A pleasure! It’s good to know little Arcade here can still make friends out there somewhere!” she said teasingly.

“I’m thirty-six years old. I don’t think I count as ‘little’ anymore,” Arcade grumbled, crossing his arms.

“Aw,” she said with a laugh, her grin spreading up into her eyes before she turned back to Vulpes. “His mother, bless her soul, was my closest friend when we were younger. Little Arcade here’s always been like the son I never had. Though lately,” she rounded on him, raising an eyebrow, “he’s been a little lazy about coming by to visit!”

“Apologies, ma’am,” Vulpes said in the absurd accent he’d put on to talk to her, bowing his head, “but I’m afraid that’s my fault. We’ve been taking a real long route, ya see. He’s put up with me the whole way. Being a traveler, I’ve wanted to stop near just about everywhere we come across.” He looked downright ashamed of himself, the way he crossed his hands over his belt and slouched forward. “I didn’t mean to be keeping him from you.”

_Hm. Workable. Weird, but workable._

“Oh now don’t you worry yourself,” Daisy said, ushering both Vulpes and Arcade to sit on the couch. “I’ve managed without him for longer stretches, I’m just teasing him.” Her smile never left her face.

Maybe it had been too long since he’d visited. Still, this presented new problems. He hadn’t planned on having his past come up again. He’d already slipped up nearly divulging his background when discussing their fathers back at the Fort ( _the Legion one_ ), and now he knew that Daisy a big part of his past…

“Besides,” she said, not missing a beat. “Now that I don’t have to walk all the way out to the community kitchen just to make dinner, it’s not really so bad up here on my own.”

Arcade stared around the room, looking for an oven. He found none, but did see a new metal table tucked into the corner near the bathroom with a hotplate and a few pans on it. “You’ve got a new kitchen?” Above the table were a few reclaimed kitchen cabinets and a utensil rack and, bolted securely to the wall. Beside it all was a faded white refrigerator, explaining the humming he’d only just noticed in the room.

“I do!” Daisy said, sounding smug. “And if you’d been around a bit more I might have made you help out with it,” she teased. She walked over to it, opening the various cabinets for Arcade to see. Obliging her, he made sure to carefully look over every single non-food item in the little kitchen.

“Oh, this is nice,” he said, trying to sound more interested than he really was.

“Got the hotplate off a trader for some Shiskebab parts, pulled the cabinets out of Jeannie May’s place, bless her soul, and found the refrigerator buried under some cars at Gibson’s. Got Manny, Cliff, and the Ranger to bring the fridge up, and I fixed it right good to run on fission batteries.” Daisy pointed to the small bundle of fission batteries under the table. “Three at a time works just fine, and I must have about five dozen of em. Should be set for a lifetime!”

“How’d you pay for all this?” Arcade asked. He opened the refrigerator and felt cool air spill out into the room. Reaching for a bottle of water, he looked to her for conformation and took out three bottles when she nodded. He could always replace them with ones from his own pack to cool down anyway.

Arcade handed a bottle to her and one to Vulpes, who sat patiently on the couch listening to their banter. He cracked open his own bottle and drank deeply; after a long day in the Mojave sun, the cold water felt wonderful on his parched throat. It had been so long since he’d had cold water available to him.

“Just good friends and mechanical knowledge,” Daisy said with a wink. “Been fixing things all over the place lately. I figure, with the war coming, I may as well settle down and get comfortable.”

_Oh. Right. The war. The war for control of Hoover Dam. Between the NCR and the Legion. And I’m traveling with a Legionary._

“Oh. Well it looks great,” he said, forcing a grin onto his face. “And the cold water is amazing, too.”

“Ambrosia indeed! Many thanks,” Vulpes echoed. Arcade almost laughed out-loud; the Latin sounded so strange in his sudden new accent.

“Any friend of Little Arcade’s a friend of mine,” Daisy said with a grin. “Besides, it’s high time he finds someone nice to spend some time with, since he refuses to give me any grandchildren.”

Arcade nearly spat out the water he was still drinking, barely managing to swallow it instead. “Daisy!”

“What?” she said, feigning ignorance. “He seems like a nice guy.”

“He’s not,” Arcade sputtered, “we’re not—”

“I figure what he’s trying to say, ma’am,” Vulpes picked up, “is that we’re just a pair of traveling friends at the moment. Nothin’ more, nothin’ less.”

“That!” Arcade half-shouted, pointing straight at Vulpes and grabbing onto the comment for dear life. The last thing he needed was for Daisy to start pestering him about _grandchildren_ again.

Daisy laughed and shook her head, setting to work sizzling some sort of meat in a frying pan for them, opening the little window in the bathroom to let any smoke out. On and on she went, about how she and Arcade’s mother used to talk about how things would be when they got old, how they knew right from the start that he’d never give them grandchildren but they loved him anyway, about moving South through the NCR…

_Here we go again._


	8. Chapter 8

“If you have any questions you plan on asking,” Arcade said, staring through the campfire and gesturing at Vulpes with a gecko-kebab, “don’t. I’m not interesting, and I don’t talk about myself.”

Vulpes smirked, silently tearing off a piece of meat with his teeth from his own kebab. He raised an eyebrow, but said nothing.

“I’m serious. I’m not hiding anything worth asking about. You want good stories? Ask me about any Freeside junkie. Just not me.”

“If I recall, it has been you that has asked nearly every question, and I providing the answers,” Vulpes said in amusement.

“Oh. Well. Yeah, I guess it has. Sorry.” Arcade stared down at his kebab, not entirely sure what to do. He hadn’t meant to be so forward, had wanted to just drop the subjects Daisy had stirred up. _Big mouth._

This was why he’d wanted to avoid Novac entirely. Sure the snipers made a good decoy, but in reality the only thing they ever shot at were people dressed in Legion armor. Daisy herself had been the reason he wanted to avoid it, and Daisy was exactly the person who managed to find them anyway. _Oh cruel Fates._

“You have no need to apologize,” Vulpes said, rubbing the back of his neck. “I did not need to answer your questions.”

“Then why did you?” Arcade asked, watching the fire crackle between them. “It’s not like I really even expected you to. I was actually pretty surprised when you didn’t just call me a profligate and ignore me.”

Vulpes smirked again, the expression quickly fading into a near-wistful gaze into the distance. “I saw no reason to distrust you.”

“So you don’t see me as a threat?” Arcade scoffed.

“No. Should I?”

The question felt as honest as it was blunt. Arcade straightened, taken aback by the question. Vulpes was Legion. That meant he was the enemy, right? _Why am I letting him take me back to Freeside then?_

Suddenly Arcade felt exhausted. Days walking through the desert heat had drained him, even with their overnight in Novac to break the monotony. It must have been weeks now. Months. Hell maybe even years had gone by and he hadn’t noticed.

He thought back, counting the days. The first night at the Fort ( _the Legion one_ ), the second. The day they were ferried down to Cottonwood Cove was the same day they had managed to make it all the way to Novac at a fast walk. That third night was the one Daisy had found them. That was yesterday. _Four nights? That’s it?_

_So much for the “months adrift in the Mojave sands” theory._

A log in the fire crumbled, breaking in half and sending little sputters of ash everywhere. One landed on the end of his lab coat, burning a tiny hole through the already torn and tattered fabric. He knew Julie would be upset with him for ruining a perfectly good lab coat on his crazy, off-the-record adventures – but only because his was a hard size to replace. Being 6’4” meant clothes were hard to come by.

He chanced a glance at Vulpes, one of the few men he’d known to come near him in height. _Probably 6’2”, give or take._ They had both towered over tiny Six’s own 5’5”, and even she looked tall next to Veronica.

Veronica. Cass. Boone. Oh they were not going to like any of this at all. If Six was considering siding with the Legion… And he’d never hear the end of it for going with her, even if it wasn’t his idea. Even if she hadn’t told him where they were going in the first place.

He was still going to end up back in Freeside with two weeks or more he couldn’t explain, in the company of a high-ranking member of the Legion. No, that didn’t sound right. Being escorted by. They weren’t traveling together for pleasure.

_Not that it hasn’t been pleasurable at times._

Didn’t matter. Vulpes was Legion.

Vulpes’ voice broke his thoughts. “You should get some rest. If we move quickly we should reach McCarran by tomorrow evening.” Vulpes made no move to take his own advice.

McCarran. Why there? There were dozens of places across the Mojave where they could part ways; why did Vulpes choose the biggest NCR base around? _Maybe I don’t want to know, that way when they interrogate me I don’t have to lie._

_Why would I feel compelled to lie in the first place?_

Still, the thought of finally being back in his own bed in Freeside by the next night… After so many nights with rocks digging into his heels and nothing but gecko meat and dirty water for food, even the meagre comforts of the ( _Old Mormon_ ) Fort seemed precious. With luck no one would have found his stash of Sunset Sarsaparilla while he was gone. Not that he was known for his luck.

If he was, he wouldn’t have been in that cave with Six when his timer went off in the first place.

Arcade forced his eyes shut tight, his clasped palms beginning to sweat. He’d managed to go almost a full day without thinking about it. That moment. Six’s anger, his own anxiety, Vulpes’ confusion. His heart pounded against his ribcage remembering that feeling in his gut: this is the man you are destined to love; he’s waited his whole life for you; he doesn’t even seem like he’s interested in men; he’s in the Legion; he’s killed thousands in the name of a megalomaniacal warlord.

If Vulpes was the man at the end of that countdown, what did that say about him? It was one thing to be a brainwashed soldier raised from childhood into a deranged man’s army. It was an entirely different matter to love one.

_Not that I do._

Still, things weren’t adding up. Vulpes had been nothing but helpful to him from the start. From Six’s attack, to offering up his food and bed and water, down to not actually pressing him with questions about his past while willingly answering any question Arcade bombarded him with. It seemed a long way to go to win the trust of a not-so-personable Freeside doctor.

_Maybe that’s because the Freeside doctor isn’t exactly making it very easy to win._

“I don’t like talking about my past,” Arcade said quietly, not opening his eyes. “It’s… My mother risked everything getting me here, to New Vegas and Freeside. At the time there were no NCR out here, no Legion. Just a handful of tribes warring it out around one of the most heavily guarded places in the South-West. I don’t want to undo everything she did for me.” He opened his eyes to see Vulpes watching him carefully.

“She could not have known what the future would bring,” Vulpes said, not breaking eye-contact. “You have done well here. Better than most.”

“I know. I just don’t want to risk it. That’s why I don’t visit Daisy that often. If they know where we came from? Well, let’s just say it might not end t.hat great. I don’t want to put her in danger.” Arcade ran a hand through his shaggy blonde hair. It needed a trim pretty seriously.

Vulpes nodded, but said nothing.

“Why did you call me ‘Cade back there?” Arcade asked, finally giving in to his own incessant curiosity.

The way his eyebrows rose, as though Vulpes hadn’t expected the question, made Arcade wonder if he should have asked it.

“It fit the persona I was using,” he said, as though it was the obvious answer. “Should I refrain from it?”

“It’s fine…” Arcade wasn’t entirely sure how to respond. “I just haven’t heard anyone call me that in a long time. It surprised me.”

Vulpes nodded. “I assumed it would be better to use a persona than to be… myself. Given the circumstances.”

“It was, I’m sorry. I was just thrown off by it.” The dull ache in his back was starting to set in again from sitting hunched over on the ground; he rubbed the base of his spine with both hands, trying to soothe it with pressure. “Daisy may be old, but she’s sharp as a whip. If she knew…”

“If she knew you were traveling with a man of the Legion she would probably skin you alive?” Vulpes finished, grinning. “I am aware of how locals think of the Legion. That is part of my work.”

Somehow, that just wasn’t comforting to think about.

“Look,” Arcade said, pulling off his glasses and pinching the bridge of his nose. “You know a lot about me now. A lot more than most people do and a lot more than I’d have expected you to learn so quickly. Please don’t make me regret letting that happen.” Another log in the fire splintered into pieces, sending sparks flying up towards the sky.

“I won’t.”


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm not entirely satisfied with this chapter at present, so there may or may not be more editing/rewriting done later. Still, for the sake of progress, I'll post this now. Either way, the concept of the content won't be changing.

“Name?” Arcade’s pencil was poised over the paper, waiting for a response. It wasn’t uncommon for wastelanders to be illiterate, leaving it up to the helpful Freeside doctors to fill out their forms for them.

“Bob?” The man’s voice wavered. Maybe not a man; he didn’t look more than 17.

“Last name?”

“It’s always been Bob!”

“No, I mean what is your surname? The name that identifies your family?”

“Smith?”

Arcade raised an eyebrow, fairly certain his name wasn’t ‘Bob Smith,’ but said nothing about it. “Where do you live?”

Bob Smith fidgeted nervously. “Near the Casa Madrid apartments, over in Westside.” He scratched at his thigh, staring down at the ground.

_Oh no._ Arcade could see where this was going already. A streak of white with vibrant blue hair passed by the entrance to the tent.

“Sam!” Arcade half shouted.

The doctor backtracked and poked his head in. “Yeah?”

“Can you take care of Bob here? Here’s his file, I just remembered I have to go check on my plants for the stimpak project.” Arcade stuffed the clipboard into Sam’s arms and made a mad dash across the Fort for his research tent. _This is why I get stuck in the labs, and that is why I don’t mind at all._

He crashed through the open tent and skidded to a halt in front of a table littered with beakers and test-tubes, a hot-plate next to a fission battery. Dozens of papers were stacked in neat little piles, shifting slightly from his sudden entrance. A shriveled up broc flower drooled a yellow goo where it lay. His departure had been so sudden initially that one of his notebooks still lay open to the page he had been writing on.

Six hadn’t told him she was taking him on a longer journey. She hadn’t even told him they were going anywhere, for that matter – just grabbed him by the wrist and pulled him along behind her until they were halfway through Freeside and he convinced her she could let go.

Since his return, he hadn’t had time to look at it at all. A sudden influx of patients had meant that every hand the Followers had was suddenly working double shifts. Extra beds had been piled up wherever they could fit, strewn across the courtyard in rows. It was more than they could really handle. Not enough medics, and not nearly enough supplies. It had taken days to even figure out what they were up against – a group of raiders had poisoned a water source somewhere just to the South.

“A whole week and you’re still here? I think that’s a new personal record for you.”

Arcade sighed, his shoulders slumping and eyes drifting shut. “Hi Julie.”

“I know you’re not the best with people, but you should at least _try_ to–“

“The kid was obviously lying. I don’t have the tact to deal with some 17-year-old that picked up an STD from his first visit to Casa Madrid,” Arcade spat, frowning. He slumped down onto the bed dropping his head into his hands. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have shouted at you.”

He didn’t even need to look up. He could feel Julie’s all too-sympathetic gaze on him from any distance. After a few weeks hanging around Julie, just about anyone could. Arcade had what she considered to be a particularly tragic existence though, meaning he dealt with particularly heavy doses of her compassion.

“Do you want to talk about it?” she asked quietly, setting a hand on his shoulder.

With a half-hearted glare he shrugged it away. “About what?”

“I know your timer was close when you left, and I haven’t seen you look at it since you returned. That’s not like you,” she said, sitting down next to him. The hand moved back to his shoulder again, to his annoyance.

“Maybe I’ve just gotten sick of looking at it,” he said, trying to avoid the question. It wouldn’t work, and it would be easier for him to just get this over with before she drove him crazy with the hugs-a-lot method. But that didn’t make him want to talk about it.

“Or maybe that countdown finally ran out?” she asked, voice full of hope on his behalf.

All it did was annoy him more.

When she leaned over and wrapped an arm around his shoulders, he had to work hard not to roll his eyes and grit his teeth. He wasn’t good at touchy-feely, and touchy-feely was Julie’s specialty. It was one of the few things he didn’t really like about her. Unfortunately, this type of situation was the kind that brought out each of those qualities he didn’t appreciate in her.

Julie was wonderful, but he just didn’t want to open up to her. Sure she knew he’d been waiting for Mr. Right to make an appearance for years, but the fact that Mr. Right came in red and gold packaging wasn’t something he was willing to share just yet. Maybe not at all. And definitely not with her, either way.

“What bothers you about him?” she asked, still using her soft ‘it’s ok there baby, I’ll get you through this’ voice. “Did he say something that upset you?”

Arcade bit down on his tongue. _He’s a mass-murdering maniac for the Legion_ , that’s what was wrong.

_No. If he was killing off Legion soldiers by the hundred for the NCR, it wouldn’t be so bad. It’s the Legion part that’s the problem._ No, saying that wouldn’t help him at all in this situation.

_And the potentially not sexually or romantically interested in men part._ Potentially a safe topic to discuss. Maybe even with her.

Julie was now rubbing her hand up and down his arm, still holding him in a loose hug. He again reminded himself not to roll his eyes as he stood up and walked to the other end of the tent, crossing his arms as he stared at the dirty canvas.

“He’s not sure he’s interested in men.” It didn’t come out as strong as he’d meant it, but at least he knew she’d heard him.

Julie took a moment to process the statement before responding. “What makes you say that?”

“The fact that he told me that himself!” Arcade snapped. It was as good as true. Vulpes hadn’t denied it, which meant it was probably right.

Julie smiled her soft smile at him, head cocking to the side. “Maybe he’s just nervous about it. That’s no reason to give up on him.”

_Give up on him?_ The concept sounded so foreign, if only because it hadn’t crossed his mind to even try not to. He’d been trying to forget the whole thing from the moment he’d realized that it wasn’t a mistake by the timer. Or, at least, that it was the only logical conclusion available – if not an outright mistake.

“Look,” Julie said, standing and walking to the open tent-flap. “Why don’t you take a few more days off? Do whatever you think you need to do, and—“

“No.” Arcade leaned down on the edge of the table, his hands balled into fists. “Thanks, I’ll stay here. Work on my research. It’ll give me something else to think about for a while. Just don’t put me on patient duty.”

Her classic sympathetic grin mixed with an expression of this-obviously-isn’t-going-to-work, but she nodded, leaving the tent without another word.

Arcade heaved a heavy sigh. _Back to the same old brahmin shit. Now where are those cacti samples…_


	10. Chapter 10

It hadn’t taken him long to reconsider Julie’s offer to let him take a few days off. Something about running around chasing certain death with Six had made his work with the Followers seem even more pointless. Miracle cures were called miracles for a reason, and life was too fast in the wasteland to spend all his time chasing them.

He stared down into his drink: some new, local beer made just passed the edge of Westside. It wasn’t bad. Once Six found the recipe for it, Cass had set up shop there with a few others. Rumor had it they were gearing up to mass produce her moonshine there too now.

_Just what Freeside needs: more alcohol._

Arcade tried not to think about the fact that he wasn’t supposed to be drinking either, strictly speaking. Sure there were no rules that forbade him from doing it, but it was an unspoken law among the Followers at the clinic to avoid alcohol. Some of the doctors thought it would make the junkies more likely to relapse, if “even the Followers” were seen drinking.

Suppressing a laugh with a grimace, he downed the rest of the drink in one long chug.

“May I join you?”

Arcade almost dropped the empty bottle, hastily setting it back on the bar. He knew that voice, and it did _not_ belong in Freeside.

“What are you doing here?” Arcade asked, not turning around. He tried to get James’ attention, but he was busily talking with another customer at the other end of the bar.

“I’m here on business.” Vulpes leaned against the bar, easily catching James’ eye.

“What’ll it be?” James asked, glancing between them. “Another of the same?” he asked, directing the question to Arcade.

Arcade hesitated, not sure he should be drinking with Vulpes around. The idea was somewhat appealing to him, he realized. Vulpes wore a carefully tailored, pre-war suit in grey, in surprisingly good condition. _Doesn’t show his biceps off the same way his armor does. Not that I really think about his biceps. Oh no. This is a terrible idea._ Giving in, nodded his ascent.

James then looked to Vulpes expectantly.

“The same.” He dropped a pile of caps on the bar, enough to cover both drinks.

Arcade picked up the beer with a scowl. “I have the caps for it,” he said, reaching into his pocket.

“As do I,” Vulpes said, moving towards a table at the back of the largely-empty room. “My business expenses are all reimbursed without question.”

“Am I a business endeavor for you now, then? Actually, don’t answer that. I don’t want to know. But I thought you… people… didn’t drink?”

Vulpes laughed, but kept his voice low as he spoke. “Frumentarii are of a different class. We need to be able to blend in to any society we come across. If I need to drink to blend in, then I will drink. It is why we are… considered less respectable, in the eyes of many in the Legion.”

The grey of his suit brought out his eyes, and Arcade had to fight to tear his gaze from them. He took a swig of his beer to distract himself.

“Do you shoot up before walking into a raider den then?” he asked, letting his love for sarcasm get the better of him.

Vulpes made a face of repulsion that made Arcade laugh loudly; the site of such blatant emotion from him was absurd.

“There is only one of us that is allowed to do such things, and he works directly with the Great Khans. Any other seen using such… items… would be punished quite severely.” Vulpes took a sip of his own beer.

Arcade was surprised how natural it seemed for him. The way the man leaned on the table with one arm, held the neck of the bottle between two fingers with the other, relaxed and comfortable. He noticed a pack of cigarettes tucked into the breast pocket.

“But you do smoke?” Arcade nodded at the faded red box.

“Occasionally,” Vulpes admitted. “It is classified in the same category as drinking.”

“This sounds like a complicated system.” The beer tasted dark and bitter on his tongue. He rubbed the back of his neck with his hand, damp from the perspiring of the bottle in the Mojave heat the bar had collected during the day.

“It is simpler than you would imagine. For our purposes we may drink or smoke as we deem necessary. If injured, we are permitted whatever treatments offered us, so as to not break cover, though the use of Med-X is strongly discouraged.” Vulpes’ glanced up as the door to the bar opened, far across the room.

Arcade heard a drunken giggle that was unmistakably familiar.

“Oh no.”

He didn’t want Cass to see him, drinking, with a legionary, in the Wrangler. He didn’t want her to see him drinking with a legionary anywhere.

“Will she recognize you?” Arcade asked in a whisper.

Vulpes subtly shook his head ‘no.’ His back was stiff, jaw set. _For someone trained to blend in, that sure looks stressed._

“Relax,” Arcade muttered. “I don’t think she’s seen us.”

She hadn’t. With a loud, satisfied laugh, she picked up a heavy looking bag – _probably filled with caps_ – and a bottle of whiskey from the counter, and two of the three men surrounding her set down boxes on the counter. The gentle clanking of glass from inside the boxes explained it all to him: she was dropping off more beer.

“Moonshine should be good by the end of the week,” she said with a grin. She reached into the messenger bag slung over her shoulder and pulled out a blue and white bottle, setting it on the counter. “Now, this one’s on me. If you like it, let me how many you want on your next order.”

James smiled and said something back to her, but quieter, which wasn’t difficult to do since Cass was practically shouting. She laughed and waved at him, then sauntered back out the door with her friends in tow. The bar was quiet again without her.

Arcade let out a long breath, slouching back comfortably in his chair. “Maybe this isn’t such a good idea. Whatever it is,” he said, fiddling with his still mostly-full bottle of beer.

“Perhaps.” Vulpes’ tone was non-committal.

“Then why find me?” Arcade could feel Vulpes’ eyes watching him.

With a soft laugh, Vulpes shook his head. “I’ll be staying on the Strip for a while now. Conversation unrelated to my work is a rare gift, something I would be a fool to pass up willingly.”

“Well I’ll be.” Arcade downed another long slog of his beer. “You let yourself think about things other than your work sometimes?”

Vulpes only smiled his strange half-grin in answer.

The throbbing ache in his spine flared for a moment with surprising intensity, prompting him to take another long drink. The drink made his skin feel pleasantly warm, just shy of tingling. He hadn’t spent so long in a bar in years. Staring at the bottle in his hand, he realized he must have been on his fifth beer or more.

“Hunh.”

Vulpes raised an eyebrow.

“Just realized how long I’ve been in here.” Arcade glanced to the old analogue clock on the wall, but it read the same time as always – 9:47. “Well, give or take a few hours. It’s been a while, let’s just say that.”

“If you’d prefer to leave, with or without my company…”

“Well, I don’t know if the air’s any better outside, but at least it won’t smell like alcohol.” Arcade downed the last few swigs in his bottle and carried it back to the bar.

“Take it easy James,” he said, handing the bottle to the man. “I’ll be back in a while. Think I’m going to borrow Six’s room for the night if that’s all right.”

“Always a pleasure,” James said with a smile. “You know that room’s always open for you guys.” He set the bottle down with a clank somewhere under the counter.

“Thanks.”

Vulpes was already at the door, silently waiting. He held the door as Arcade stepped outside, then followed.

“Not staying at the Lucky 38?” Vulpes asked, raising an eyebrow. He crossed his arms, still holding his drink. Arcade couldn’t help but notice the way it made his shoulders seem broader, more muscular.

Dangerous territory, he decided, remembering his accidental half-glance at the man’s bare chest his first night at the ( _Legion_ ) Fort. He shook his head clear. “Nah. It gets too stuffy up there. Besides, I don’t trust the structural integrity of that thing. It looks like it could snap in half at any second.”

Vulpes laughed lightly, sipping his beer as they slowly walked back down the street towards the center of Freeside. “Quite reasonable. I have a certain distaste for it, myself.”

It somehow didn’t surprise Arcade that Vulpes had, or at least sounded as though he had been, inside the 38. _Hell, maybe that’s what he’s been on the Strip for._ He found he didn’t want to think about it. A tiny shudder ran through his neck, but he hid it by cracking it to the left, then right.

“Does that alleviate tension?” Vulpes asked, giving him a strange look. “You seem to do it frequently.”

Then it was Arcade’s turn to laugh. “I guess so. I’ve been cracking my neck since I was pretty young. Probably about 15. It’s not great for you, but it does loosen things up. At first it was just my neck. Then came the hands, back, shoulder… Just the one shoulder, though. I’m not sure why.”

“Strange,” Vulpes said, his tone quiet and curious.

For some reason it didn’t bother Arcade, though he complained whenever others pestered him about it. _Wait. Why am I answering his questions?_ He thought for a moment, trying to decide if he should try to casually disappear, but realized that he’d asked Vulpes more than enough questions to warrant a response or two of his own.

“Can I ask you something?” Arcade asked. He stopped walking and turned to face the other man, crossing his arms as well. The question had been eating him for days now.

Vulpes nodded once and took another sip.

“How did you know what to do about Six? Back… on _that_ day. When she had her panic attack…” He trailed off, not daring to meet the other man’s gaze.

“I am surprised you didn’t ask sooner,” Vulpes admitted, sighing. “I was beginning to think you weren’t going to.”

“You don’t have to answer if you don’t want,” Arcade said quickly. He wasn’t sure if the heat in his cheeks was from the alcohol or not. “I didn’t mean to pry. You just… reacted so quickly and precisely. Even when I was being essentially useless to her.”

Vulpes sighed, taking a longer drink from his beer and finishing the bottle off. He set the bottle down against the edge of the nearest building, leaning back against the wall and staring up at the illuminated “FREESIDe” sign. Its letters flickered slightly.

Arcade followed. Before leaning up against the building beside him, he took the pack of cigarettes from Vulpes’ pocket and slid a single one out before putting the box back.

Vulpes raised an eyebrow, but handed him the lighter without being asked.

“Hush. I don’t do it often,” he said as he lit the end carefully, inhaling the warm smoke before handing the lighter back. “Thanks.” He was careful to blow the smoke away from Vulpes, though he was sure the man was no stranger to smoke. Most of the NCR military seemed to chain-smoke, no matter what they were doing.

To Arcade’s surprise, Vulpes lit one as well. _I guess I don’t have to worry about that then._ He raised and eyebrow and half-grinned. “Only occasionally?”

“It is not unpleasant.” Vulpes returned Arcade’s grin, leaning his head back against the wall. He took a deep drag on the cigarette, then let it out in a long sigh.

“When I was young, very young… Before the Legion came into my life, I was part of a much larger family. You already know about my father, but I was not his only child.” Vulpes looked over toward Arcade, rolling his head along the wall.

“You have siblings?” Arcade asked, confused.

“Not anymore.”

_I really need to stop asking him questions._

Vulpes continued. “I was the first child of his second wife. My youngest half-brother was already eighteen by the time the Legion came. He and my two other half-brothers were crucified along with the rest of the village when they refused to join with Caesar.”

“But… what does that have to do with…”Arcade wasn’t sure where this was going. He flicked the ash from his cigarette and inhaled from it again.

“I had a sister. The only other child my mother had,” Vulpes explained. “The pregnancy was complicated, and the girl didn’t get better with time after the birth. She was prone to seizures, ones far worse than the one Six had that night. The seizures, in turn, lead to panic attacks – similar, but different enough to be a problem.”

“I see…” Arcade said, looking away. How many awful things had happened to him? He was so young still.

“It was my task to care for her. Her attacks were frequent. I’ve had a good deal of experience with handling them.” Vulpes stared up at the sky. “She died a few months before they came. There was nothing that could have been done for her.”

“I’m sorry,” Arcade said honestly. “Though… it was probably better that…”

Vulpes nodded, tearing his eyes from the heavens to watch the dull pavement. “It was. They would have killed her the moment they found out about her health. Or worse.”

“How old was she?” Arcade asked, his voice light.

“The same age I was,” Vulpes said simply.

Arcade blinked, turning towards him. “She… you mean you were twins?”

Vulpes nodded and brought his cigarette back to his mouth.

Twins weren’t unheard of in the wasteland, but were very uncommon. The only ones Arcade even knew of were were James and Francine. He saw Vulpes in a different light now, somehow. If he thought harder about everything he’d seen of him, the man seemed… He wasn’t sure how to explain it, even to himself. It was almost like something he’d read in a book once: beautiful and sad. _That sounds particularly masculine. Maybe I won’t mention it._

“So… well I guess that explains how you knew exactly what to do and how you acted so quickly. I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have asked. Like I said, I just start talking sometimes and—”

“If I was unwilling to tell you, I would not have told you,” Vulpes interrupted. “The past is what it is and there is little use dwelling on it. Your question, on the other hand, was reasonable enough.” He glanced over to Arcade but didn’t hold his gaze. “It seems only fair to answer it, after our evening with Daisy.”

“Oh god.” Arcade had forgotten about that ordeal. “How much have you figured out?”

“I would assume most of it, though it was not my intent to procure information about your past.”

“Then what was your intent?” Arcade asked, a little more aggressively than he’d meant.

Vulpes laughed, taking one last drag before flicking the cigarette to the ground and stomping it out. “To keep you alive and well. I hope you don’t object.”

“No. No I guess not.” Arcade shook his head clear again and smiled lazily. “Thanks.”


	11. Chapter 11

Arcade spent most of the week trying to do anything but his work at the ( _Old Mormon_ ) Fort. But he didn’t want to go back to the Lucky 38 either. There was something unsettling about the place when it was so empty.

Cass had been spending all of her time at the brewery. Apparently her staff consisted of four NCR soldiers who knew the rules and regs for the production and sale of alcohol, and another two who were brewers she knew out in California. She hadn’t been back to the 38 in weeks – which made her a much happier person than Arcade remembered her to be. _Maybe it’s just being constantly surrounded by alcohol._

Last anyone knew about Boone, he’d been talking of re-enlisting for another tour. No one knew whether or not to take him seriously on it, but he wouldn’t be caught on the Strip if it could be avoided. Something about the half-naked women made him uncomfortable. Six had always said it was “Carla feels.”

_Noted for her eloquence._

Six herself, however, hadn’t been seen by any of the Freeside locals since the day she had dragged him off to chase Vulpes across the Mojave. Veronica went somewhere not long after. Arcade could only assume it was because Six had picked her up to go somewhere after her trip into Boomer territory.

At least that meant Six was probably alive.

“Relax!” Cass said through a laugh. Drunk was apparently a permanent state for her now, judging by her puffy face and non-stop giggles. “She’s a tough little bitch. Even the grave can’t put her down. And if Ronnie’s with her, anyone would have to get through that Steel before they could lay a finger on Six’s little self.”

Arcade sighed, rubbing the back of his neck. “I don’t know. It’s been a while since anyone’s heard from her.”

“You’re not so worried about Ronnie,” Cass said, quirking an eyebrow at him.

“Veronica can punch through anything that gets in her way. Six can’t even shoot straight when her gun has a laser pointer on the end of it,” Arcade said dryly. “Can you blame me for worrying about her?”

Cass sighed, eyeing the bottle on the table.

“Cass…” He was starting to think it was her that he should focus on worrying about. “It’s not even lunch yet.”

“I got up after dark yesterday, it’s practically dinner time for me,” she snapped.

It wasn’t worth arguing, but the effect the alcohol was having on her was concerning. There were dark circles under her eyes, purpler than a bruised mutfruit. Her skin was puffed up all over, blotches of red lacing between new freckles. Her hair was oily, pulled back into a loose braid that was falling apart. She never seemed even the littlest bit sober anymore.

The 38 wasn’t the only place he felt completely out of his comfort zone in anymore, apparently.

“Look. You asked me to find out what’s wrong with you,” Arcade said, his voice calm and even. “It shouldn’t come as much of a surprise to you that it’s the alcohol. You’re destroying your liver, not to mention your brain.”

Cass rolled her eyes. “I knew that. What I wanted was for you to tell me how to fix it so I can keep drinking.”

A strange, heavy something dropped out of his chest and into his stomach. “Cass, I don’t know that it _can_ be fixed.”

“Well then give me something to deal with the pain!” she snapped, standing up and and hunching over the table towards him. Her face seethed rage, but it was hard to notice through the smell of the booze on her breath. Being so close to her made him feel tipsy. _And not the good kind of tipsy._

He scowled up at her. “You want the pain to stop? Great. You need to take a few weeks off and detox your body. Maybe a few carefully placed stimpaks and some fixer can clean you up for now.” He stood, towering over her. “But the damage has been done. You’re almost forty, Cass… This could kill you if you don’t slow down.”

She didn’t say anything, just watched his expressions change.

Arcade pulled off his glasses and pinched the bridge of his nose. “If you don’t _at least_ slow down, you might not make it to sixty.” _Probably. Probably won’t make it to sixty._ “If you stop? Who knows.”

“Yeah?” her voice was cold and quiet. “And a cazador might kill me tomorrow. It’s a shitty wasteland out there. Somethin’s gonna kill me, one way or another. I ain’t heard of anyone dying out here in a way they liked.”

“That doesn’t mean it’s not something to aim for.”

Neither spoke. Cass wasn’t ready to listen and Arcade didn’t have the energy to force her to. If he could help, he would, but she wasn’t going to let him.

“Last I remember, Veronica said she was gonna talk to Six about something at Helios One. Some sort of weapon or something. Maybe someone with the Gun Runners might have seen them heading out that way.” Cass didn’t look at him, just stared down at the table beneath her clenched fists.

Arcade wasn’t sure they would tell them even if they had, but it was something. “Thank you.”

“Now get the hell out. If something kills me in the next few days I’ll have one of the boys come let you know.”

He turned back to face her, but she still wouldn’t look at him. “Cass…”

“Go.”

Arcade sighed, letting his eyes fall closed. He knew she wouldn’t really kick him out, she just didn’t want to listen to him if he was going to tell her not to drink. She needed help, but she was too damn stubborn to accept it. _Hell, the only way Six got her to sell her caravan was to piss her off until she saw reason._ Arcade wasn’t quite so suicidal as to attempt it himself.

There was no point trying to stay. He stopped in the doorway, his hand on the frame, to say he’d be back. But she was already drinking again. For some reason he didn’t want to say it after that.

Resigning himself to talk to Six about it, if she ever came back from wherever it was she’d been lately, he started back for Freeside again. Something about that girl made Cass see sense, and no one could quite figure out why. Maybe it was their matching red hair, maybe it was their equally stubborn care-free attitudes, maybe it was something else entirely. But it was probably the only way to get through to Cass at this point.

The question that bothered him most as he followed the road back along the south side of the Strip, was: why had Six given her the brewery in the first place? Sure, alcohol was something Cass enjoyed. Making moonshine was something she was good at. Her connections with booze-makers all the way to the Pacific would be ideal for getting assistants and extra publicity. But she was a raging alcoholic, and Six knew that.

_Six also knew my timer was nearly up when she dragged me out into the desert._

Something wasn’t adding up. She wasn’t outright malicious, but her choices had been… reckless. Not in regards to herself, but for those she involved in them. Bringing Veronica with her to anywhere that might have something interesting had brought several injuries to the scribe – but she’d brushed them off with her tough-girl attitude and a handful of Med-X.

Raul had even taken a beating for her by working on a reactor in a Vault for her to turn the power back on; the radiation in it was bad enough to even cause _his_ ghoulified skin some damage. He was so drained of energy that it had been a full week before he’d been able to get back to life as normal.

A noise off to the side broke him out of his thoughts, but it was just a brahmin clopping along with its caravan. The Crimson Caravan Company sign, faded and flecked with grit, stood far up to his right. He’d already passed North Vegas, the Freeside North gate, and made the turn South – without paying any attention to where he was going. _At least my feet know what they’re doing._

The area outside Freeside seemed quiet. Arcade looked around, but the only thing out of place was that the usual group of Kings from the East gate was missing. It wasn’t a good sign, but hardly ever accompanied by silence. They usually only left if there was trouble in Freeside.

It wasn’t hard to decide to stick outside the main city for a little while longer. It gave him an excuse to see if the Gun Runners had heard anything from Six or Veronica lately, at any rate.

But before he even rounded the corner, he heard excited voiced chattering over each other – he’d found the missing Kings. He couldn’t see what they were clustered around, but they were going crazy about it.

“Calm down already!” an unmistakably familiar voice shouted from the center of the group. “I can’t just fire the thing, I might blow us all up.”

“You’re tellin’ us that that blue light that came down out of the sky today? That was from this crazy little thing?” one of the Kings asked. He put his hands on two other Kings’ faces to quiet them.

“Yep. Boom. Big, shiny boom.”

“I dunno, looks kinda like a toy to me.”

“Yeah, doesn’t it look like the one that kid used to play with over by Mick & Ralph’s?”

“It is that one. I bought it from him.” She sounded quite proud of herself, voice smug and thick.

“You’re pulling my leg.

“No way!”

“Yes way, now let me sell off some of this crap I’ve picked up already!” she half-shouted, playful and proud all at once. She pushed through the small cloud of Kings towards the Gun Runners vendor booth, but stopped dead upon seeing Arcade.

He raised an eyebrow at her. “I take it you found something good?”

Six’s face went colorless and her smile faded away.

“Hey, this guy giving you trouble, Sixy Baby?” one of the Kings asked, crossing his arms and frowning.

“What?” she glanced over at him, then turned back to Arcade. “Oh no, no. No he’s fine, don’t worry. I just didn’t expect to run into him here.”

Arcade frowned too. _What does that mean?_

“But yeah. Ronnie and I went over to Helios One. Turns out this thing is a space ray gun thing. I could blow up the whole strip with it in one shot,” she said, still pale.

“Well don’t sit on it then,” Arcade said with a laugh, but she didn’t laugh with him. “What’s up?

Six bit her lip, shifting her weight from one leg to the other. “Are you ok?” she asked, timid.

“I’m fine?” Arcade turned it into a question as well. _Am I missing something?_

He nearly fell over with the force of Six’s sudden leaping hug, barely catching his balance before they toppled to the ground.

“I’m so sorry!” she shouted, her face smooshed into his chest. “I don’t know why I did it, I shouldn’t have left you with them! Did they do anything to you? How did you get back here? Was it horrible? I’m so sorry, I didn’t think—”

“Woah, woah, woah! Settle down, Six! I’m perfectly fine. Well, maybe not perfectly, but—”

Six wailed and started sobbing into his coat. “What did they do to you?” she half-shouted. “I don’t know what I was thinking!”

Arcade glanced around to see if someone could pry her off him, but the Kings had evaporated. “They didn’t do anything to me!” he said with a half-laugh. “I just spent the day looking around, getting to know the place a bit I guess. Then Vulpes walked me back to Camp McCarran and I’ve been back in Freeside ever since!”

She looked up at him, eyes wide.

“Who you should really be worrying about is Cass,” he said, taking her by the shoulders and gently pushing her back. He’d had enough close contact for the day, thank you. “She’s a wreck. I don’t think she’s been sober for a minute since you put her in charge of that brewery. What were you thinking putting an alcoholic in a beer factory, anyway?”

“You’ve been here this whole time?” she asked, tears all but disappeared from her eyes.

“Yeah? Should I have been somewhere else?” he frowned, thinking back. Had he missed something?

Six blinked a few times, just staring at him.

“Six?”

She shook her head, then smiled broadly. “Nope, sorry, just confused. It’s been a weird week. Ronnie is back in her hole in the ground for a bit I guess. She said she might stay there a while. Meet me back at the 38 later and I’ll tell you everything, but I wanna sell some of this shit first.”

Arcade scratched the back of his neck. He hated the 38, but there was no reason not to go. Especially if he was going to get anywhere on the topic of Cass.

“All right. I’ll meet you back there tonight.” Something about the way she’d turned back around like a switch make him feel uneasy, but there was a lot to talk about. _To dinner, and then the brahmin pen._

                                                                                              


	12. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the wait. I wanted to get this chapter exactly right!

There was something about iguana bits that made it impossible to cook in a way it would taste good. Maybe it was the part where it was iguana bits, Arcade wasn’t sure. But it was cheap, and it was nourishing and fast to make. Most places kept it ready-made around dinner time, so it only had to be re-heated. Of course, that made it taste even worse. Like salt and char.

The Wrangler was nearly empty; nothing new since the war got close to Freeside. James was starting to get concerned, but Francine didn’t think it was a problem.

“Relax. There’s always a market for drugs and alcohol,” Arcade overheard her saying to her brother. “It’ll be fine.”

Arcade suppressed a laugh. _And that means there’s always a place for the Followers._

He picked at his food and pretended not to listen. There was enough for him to worry about without dragging himself into other people’s problems.

“May I join you?”

Arcade put down his fork. “You know, if this keeps up? People might start to talk.” He grinned as Vulpes sat down.

“I very much doubt it.” Vulpes smirked, lounging back comfortably in his chair. If everyone hadn’t already known that the Garrets owned the place, someone might have thought he did. Something in the slope of his shoulders, the tilt of his head, the sparkle in his eyes…

_Nope. Definitely not thinking about his shoulders. Not at all._

Vulpes leaned forward over the table. “I need to speak with you about a delicate matter.”

_Definitely not. Oh._

Arcade blinked and shook his head, forcing himself to shift his gaze from Vulpes’ shoulders to his eyes. _Oh._ Arcade raised an eyebrow.

Vulpes sighed, staring down at the tabletop. “You should not go to the Lucky 38 tonight.”

“What?” Arcade caught his gaze and brought it upward again.

“You should not go to the Lucky 38 this evening, as I believe you had planned to do.”

“Why?”

Vulpes glanced around the room, ears pricked in search of even the slightest noise. _Always on guard._ “It would be… ill advised.”

Arcade frowned, leaning back in his chair. “And why’s that?” He crossed his arms over his chest.

“You must understand,” Vulpes shifted in his chair, “that this is not something that my associates would want me to tell you.” He flexed his fingers, balling them into fists and stretching them out over and over.

Arcade said nothing, waiting. The frown didn’t leave his face.

“I was asked at one point by your courier friend to perform a favor for her. One which I claimed I would do, but chose not to.”

“Go on.” Arcade cracked his neck to one side, then the other. He eyed his drink for a moment, but didn’t pick it up.

“You may recall that I mentioned to you, at the Fort, that she had asked a favor of me?” Vulpes raised his eyebrows in question.

Arcade nodded. “Yeah, and you brought me back to Freeside and here we are now. So what?”

“I was supposed to bring you to Caesar,” Vulpes said, his voice quiet.

“Oh?” Arcade asked, raising an eyebrow and trying not to laugh. “What and you didn’t bring me to say hi to him, and so now Six is going to be mad at me?”

Vulpes lowered his voice even further. “I was supposed to bring you to Caesar, as a gift.”

Arcade said nothing, only blinked.

“A slave,” Vulpes said, dropping his eyes to the table. “And I chose not to.”

_What?_

“No,” Arcade’s blood boiled in his chest. “She wouldn’t do something like that,” he said, his voice trailing off.

Vulpes watched him closely, leaning farther over the table. “She intended to use you to gain favor with him.”

“You’re just trying to manipulate me.” He knocked his chair to the floor as he stood. “Trying to turn me against her.”

“She did,” Vulpes said, his words louder but still calm. “And I believe she intends tonight for something neither of us would enjoy to see happen.”

“That’s a lie!” Arcade half-snarled, throwing a handful of caps on the table.

“Then why would she ask me to escort you across a desert you’ve called home for nearly 30 years?” Vulpes said, standing as well. “You knew then it seemed strange, why not now?”

Arcade struggled to find an answer, curling his lips in anger as he stared into Vulpes’ stoic face. The man’s lack of emotion just made Arcade even more infuriated.

“Why would she? What reason could she even have for it?” Arcade countered. “I haven’t done anything but help her since the day I met her.”

Vulpes shook his head. “Why does anyone choose a side in a war?”

Arcade stopped breathing for a moment. Choose a side? Had Six chosen a side? _The wrong side?_ He looked at Vulpes again in the light he’d first seen him, back in that cave in the middle of the desert. As an enemy. As a soldier on the wrong side of the war.

Arcade turned and marched across the room and up the stairs towards his small, rented bedroom.

“Arcade!” Vulpes shouted, a half-strangled cry.

It froze him, the desperation in Vulpes’ voice. When he moved again, he heard Vulpes’ footsteps following him. He didn’t stop him.

Stepping into his room, Arcade grabbed Vulpes by the shoulder and pulled him inside, slamming the door behind them.

“What the fuck. What the _fuck_!” Arcade shoved Vulpes across the room, forcing the man to sit down on the edge of the bed, then began pacing back and forth across the room in front of him. “Why am I even listening to you?”

“Because I have no reason to lie to you,” Vulpes said plainly.

“Of course you do!” Arcade shouted, throwing his hands into the air. “You’re a fucking Frumentarius, it’s your job to lie to people!”

“Have I done anything but treat you fairly and with respect?” Vulpes asked. He leaned back on his elbows on the bed.

Arcade stared at him, at the outline of his chest, the smooth lines of his neck, as he paced left and then right. He tore his gaze away again.

“That’s not the point!” His hands clenched into fists as he stuffed them into the pockets of his slacks.

“Then what cause do you have to disbelieve me?”

“Because you’re Vulpes-fucking-Inculta!”

Vulpes’ face pulled into a sneer of disgust. “I may be considered cruel and twisted by some, but I am not a liar by any means. I would prefer you not consider me as such.”

Arcade straightened, turning back to face Vulpes.

“I do nothing but what I say I will do. If I do not speak on a subject, I have not lied. Six asked me to do something, then mistook my silence for agreement.” Vulpes sat up, supporting himself on his palms. “There is truth in omission; there are no lies in silence.”

The ferocity with which Vulpes spoke forced Arcade to sit down. He decided against joining Vulpes on the bed, instead sitting in a chair at a table against the wall.

“Everything you have asked, I have told you. I have offered you information unprompted as well. There is nothing I have done to mislead you, and _none_ of it has been for Caesar. I’ve never before chosen to break away from what I believe my Lord Caesar would want. But for you I have made exceptions.” Vulpes stood, movements slow, and his voice dropped to barely more than a whisper. “What makes you think I would purposely lead you astray now, after everything I have done for you?”

Arcade huffed out a laugh, shaking his head. “I didn’t think a little conversation was so much to ask of someone.”

“Many of the things you asked me were things I had not allowed even myself to think of for years. No soldier of mine would dare ask such questions. Caesar already knows the answers. Others of my own rank? The Legate? Lucius? Neither would be interested.” Vulpes turned away. “I have given you more than anyone whose ideals I believe in. Do not underestimate its worth.” He moved towards the door.

“Vulpes, wait,” Arcade said, standing.

The man stopped, frozen mid-stride.

Arcade realized he’d never really addressed him by name before. It felt strange, the way the name rolled so easily off his tongue. “I’m sorry.” Arcade ran a hand through his hair, gripping it and pulling out a few of the blonde strands without meaning to.

Vulpes turned back around, refusing to meet his gaze as he leaned back against the door. He crossed his arms, balancing easily with the toe of one boot digging into the faded, grey carpet.

“I just… how do you expect me to react? You’re telling me not to go to Six’s place because… because what? Because she wants to help _you_ now?”

“Yes.” Vulpes closed his eyes.

Arcade only blinked, unable to respond.

“She wants you out of her way. So that she may continue to work for the Legion without interruption.” He opened his eyes again. “And if you were any other man I would not have told you.”

Arcade swallowed hard, unable to find words. The shock of reality hit him like a sledgehammer. Six? Legion? _Why?_ It didn’t make sense. None of it made any sense. That Six would choose Legion over NCR. That Vulpes might really be going against unspoken orders by telling him this. That Vulpes had actually made the decision to tell him, knowing what it meant.

“What should I do?” Arcade asked, tone quiet and flat. He could hear the soft intake of breath before Vulpes opened his eyes.

“There is little you can do, other than remain here,” he said. He sat back down on the edge of the old mattress, folding his hands and leaning forward with his arms against his knees. “I have asked some of my men to keep an eye on her. And to make sure she makes no move against you. As a personal favor.”

Arcade rolled his shoulders, unsure what to say. “Thank you.”

Vulpes nodded once. “She holds little sway with your Followers. They would likely not be bought, so I assume you would be safe with them. My men would also ensure your safety here, at the Wrangler. I won’t let her touch you.” His gaze was fierce, though it refused to meet Arcade’s eyes.

A soft knock interrupted them, and Francine’s voice drifted through the closed door. “Everything all right in there, Gannon? James asked me to check on you.”

Arcade stood and walked to the closed door, opening it just enough to reveal himself. “Yeah. I’m fine Francine. Tell him it’s all right. Just a misunderstanding. Thanks.”

She looked him up and down, nodded, then padded away, her feet bare against the dull wood grain of the floor.

Arcade closed the door just as quietly.

When he turned, Vulpes was standing only inches from him.

“Oh.” Arcade moved to step back out of the way, but found he was already pressed back against the frame of the door. _Oh._ He tried to move to the side, but Vulpes was on him, fists gripped like iron into the collar of his lab coat. His breath caught in his throat, blood thundering in his ears.

Vulpes’ eyes were hard and unreadable; the mask was back on.

“I can never tell what you’re thinking,” Arcade said quietly, trying hard not to hyperventilate. Vulpes’ expression softened, and Arcade watched as he blinked slowly. This wasn’t Arcade’s forte. He was bad enough at dealing with people, completely unable to read them most of the time - even when they weren’t trained to mask every thought and feeling.

The space between them melted away. Vulpes pulled harder at Arcade’s collar, pulling him closer and pressing their lips together in the gentlest kiss. Arcade flushed at their closeness, feeling the heat linger in his face even as Vulpes pulled away.

“ _Vive_ ,” he said quietly, still holding fast as he stared down at Arcade’s chest.

Before Arcade could respond, Vulpes was gone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _vive_ = command: live


	13. Chapter 13

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this took a while to post! Hopefully there aren't any errors in it, I didn't really check too closely. Happy Halloween!

The night air felt cool on Arcade’s skin, though he wasn’t sure it was just the weather; his skin still burned from having Vulpes so close to him. His cheeks flushed at the memory. _He kissed me? He kissed me. **He** kissed me. He kissed **me.**_

That meant all sorts of problems. Problems that shouldn’t have been problems. _Vulpes was the man at the end of my countdown. This is supposed to happen._ Still, Arcade couldn’t help but wonder what that meant about him. The fact that Vulpes was Legion, and powerfully so, made everything difficult.

Nothing was adding up. Vulpes helping him, even though it meant going against the Legion? Or was it all a trick? The idea of Six working for the Legion didn’t sit well with him. It didn’t make any sense. What could they have offered her to make her want to work for a bunch of raping slavers and their deranged warlord?

Arcade found himself walking to the Lucky 38 not long after Vulpes left, though not completely ignoring his warning. He kept his plasma defender on his hip, because it would be all too easy for Six to quietly kill him - if Vulpes was right. Still, it seemed too elaborate a trick for even Vulpes to play to have Arcade go in to the 38 with the intent to kill, so he kept it charged and the safety _off_.

When he stepped out of the elevator and into the presidential suite however, it was empty. The hairs on the back of his neck bristled as he checked each room, confirming that Six wasn’t there. No one else was either, though that didn’t much surprise him. If Veronica was staying with the Brotherhood, where Raul had been for the past several months as well, and Cass was living at the Brewery, that only left Boone – who was known to disappear for weeks at a time without so much as a word. Even the dog was missing. _Probably back with the King, enjoying his new brain._

The whole of the building was silent, eerily deserted.

He slumped down onto the couch in Six’s room, sighing. If he was going to wait, he was at least going to do so sitting down.

Arcade drummed his fingers on the couch, cracked his neck and rolled his shoulder back into place. A copy of _Today’s Physician_ was lying on the coffee table, but he had read the issue so many times he’d grown sick of it. A thin layer of dust had settled across the cover. _How long has it been?_ The building felt deserted – even more so now that House was dead.

_So much for ‘the House always wins.’_ Arcade laughed quietly, but the sound felt out of place in the dark, windowless suite.

The digital clock on the desk ticked the minutes away. By the time 7:15 had shifted to 7:35 and then 7:45, Arcade was restless. Had she forgotten? _What is she doing?_ Unable to sit still, he flicked the safety on and off over and over on his plasma pistol, but it wasn’t satisfying – only aggravating. A reminder of the amount of time being wasted waiting for Six.

He stood and paced back and forth in front of the bed, but it only reminded him of when he had been pacing back and forth in front of his bed at the Wrangler. In front of Vulpes. Who had kissed him.

Arcade tried to remind himself that he wasn’t a little girl. Men had kissed him before. There had even been a few he’d kissed first. There was never anything serious, just flings and one-night-stands. It was hard to have a serious relationship with someone when there was a clock in your pocket counting down to ‘the one.’

The closest thing he’d had to a serious relationship in the past was more of a friends with benefits situation, looking back. The man worked for the Crimson Caravan, and didn’t stick around for very long. He’d come into town, book a room at the Tops, invite Arcade out for drinks, they’d end up in bed together, and the next day he’d be gone again.

He’d stopped coming back about the time of the first Battle for Hoover Dam.

Arcade glanced at the clock again, deciding that maybe Six wasn’t coming. It wasn’t even unlike her to ask him to meet her somewhere and then not bother to show up. In fact, it happened more often than not. He kicked the trunk at the end of her bed in frustration, quickly regretting it for the pain in his toes.

But something about the sound of things shifting inside the trunk made him wonder what was in it. He cocked his head to the side, gazing at it in question. Bending down on one knee, his hands reached towards the latches, but he hesitated. He stared at his hands, frozen in mid-air.

_Should I though?_ Arcade glanced behind him. The elevator doors remained closed, the light signaling that it was still at the suite’s floor. No one had called it yet, and if someone did, he’d hear the groaning of the cables.

He turned back to the trunk. There wasn’t anything in there that Six had said couldn’t be borrowed anyway. So that meant there was no harm in looking. Guilt burned in his chest, but he found himself unlocking the clasps anyway, lifting the lid backward and letting it rest against the bedframe.

Nothing about the pile of guns seemed out of place, though rather dangerous. It was only by luck that none of them had fired when he kicked the trunk; several were loaded with the safety off. He switched it back on for the handful of pistols on top and moved them aside to do the same for a rifle farther down in the pile, but something beneath caught his eye.

Using the long barrel of a silenced pistol to shift things around in the trunk, he saw a few glinting metal coins at the bottom. Not caps, not NCR coins, but gleaming _gold_ Legion coin.

Arcade dropped the pistol and slammed the lid of the trunk shut, not caring if something fired off inside it. Spinning around, he sat down on the lid and stared at the elevator doors. They were still closed, the light still indicating it was on the same floor.

His heart pounded in his chest. _It doesn’t mean anything. She probably won it at a casino. And took her winnings in Legion coin instead of nice, easy, spendable caps._ He tried to convince himself it was a nice easy way to keep large amounts of money in small spaces. Since NCR money was so devalued, it didn’t make sense to keep stacks of the paper bills around, so Legion gold was a sensible route. After all, one gold coin was worth a hundred caps. _It’s a space-saver, that’s all. A nice, easy, space-saver that might become completely devalued in a matter of months._

For the first time Arcade was starting to think Vulpes might have told him the truth, and he didn’t want to think about that.

The easiest thing to do, of course, would be to find Six and prove once and for all that Vulpes was wrong. That Vulpes was just trying to manipulate him, for whatever crafty reason he’d come up with. So he would just find something that couldn’t be denied. Then there would be no disputing it.

Arcade frowned as he walked towards the elevator. Something about the concept made him feel sick to his stomach, but he wasn’t sure what. It could have been that he had even allowed himself to doubt Six. What could make her want to join the _Legion_ of all things, anyway? It could just as easily have been that he hadn’t just trusted Vulpes in the first place.

Pushing the button made him remember Victor, possibly the strangest securitron AI ever made. He shuddered, remembering the grating sound of the robot’s voice. The strange disappearance of Victor after House’s even stranger sudden death had been an oddly happy event for everyone who frequented the Lucky 38. Victor made all of them particularly uncomfortable. The fact that Victor seemed to enjoy jumping around into different securitron bodies in order to meet them everywhere across the Mojave was even weirder.

He shook his head, willing himself to think of anything else just to get the memories out of his head. As luck would have it, his thoughts immediately shifted back to the kiss Vulpes had surprised him with. _Thank you, brain. Just what I needed._

The first thing that greeted Arcade when he stepped out of the elevator to the penthouse was the sound of Radio New Vegas, reverberating throughout the suite. Then he saw the screens. He walked through the doorway in awe, staring at what must have been the largest terminal he’d ever seen. Everything about it was massive.

Each of the many screens displayed a view of somewhere in the city. One was focused on the entrance to the brewery, the screen beneath it showing the view from inside the door. He could see Cass sitting at the same table he’d seen her at earlier, staring into nothingness, hand wrapped around a still full bottle of whiskey, unmoving. Another screen flashed an assortment of views of The Tops.

And the largest screen stared down the courtyard of the Old Mormon Fort, angled perfectly to see anyone coming and going. And a perfect view of Arcade’s tent.

_Okay… That’s not creepy at all…_

Six was leaning back in a plush chair, her booted feet up on the dash of the control panel for the dozens of screens, flailing her arms around happily with the music. The chair wiggled, rolling back and forth slightly with each sweeping movement.

“ _Like the sailor once said,_ ” Six sang along loudly, only slightly off key, “ _ain’t that a hole in the boat?_ ” The toe of her boot nudged a pistol laying on the console, making her lunge to catch it. Gun now in hand, she aimed at the screen and pretended to shoot at it in time with the music, making little pschoo noises with each shot.

The scene was so completely bizarre that Arcade lost his resolve and just stood staring at it all.

He started to back away. A hand pressed over his mouth, another grabbed his wrist as he reached for his gun. _Too slow; I’m out of practice._

“She’s waiting for you to exit the Followers’ Fort.” The whisper was in Vulpes’ voice. Arcade turned slightly to see the man standing just beside him, staring down at the wall of screens. He was wearing a crisp black long-sleeved shirt, buttons obscured by a long black tie, paired with matching black slacks.

Arcade raised an eyebrow at him, giving Vulpes a very obvious onceover when the man turned back to look at him.

Vulpes smirked and let go. “The ninja costume seemed too obvious.”

“How did you even get in here?” Arcade whispered back, trying not to laugh.

Vulpes jerked his head in the direction of the elevator, and both men walked back over to it and stepped in. He pressed the button for the casino floor. “I have my ways. I will admit the front door must be easier.”

“Did you try knocking?” Arcade asked, raising an eyebrow. “I’m sure she’d invite you in for tea if you brought flowers.”

“Are flowers that popular still?” Vulpes asked, eyes unfocused. He leaned back against the wall and shoved his hands into his pockets.

Arcade looked away, trying not to think about how good he looked like that.

“Oh yeah! They’re all the rage. Flowers never go out of style, I guess. Or maybe it’s just that style hasn’t changed since before the war. Maybe both.” Arcade pushed his glasses back up his nose and watched the floor. _Don’t. Look. At. Him._

The elevator slowed to a halt and the door slid open, revealing the dark interior of the Casino floor. They both silently headed for the door and out onto the strip. The transition out onto the strip was blinding; the lights flashing along the ground up towards the door made his head spin every time he walked over them. It was one of the things he hated about the 38.

“So—”

“Not here,” Vulpes said quietly. He looked pointedly at the securitrons, hands still in his pockets. He led Arcade back through the gate into Freeside and towards the Wrangler by back alleys, avoiding the evening crowds.

“You chose not to listen to my advice.” His voice remained quiet.

Arcade felt a pang of guilt. “I’m sorry.”

“I cannot blame you for not trusting me,” Vulpes said with a shrug. His eyes betrayed his disappointment.

“It’s not that I don’t trust you,” Arcade said, the words falling out too quickly. “I just. I don’t know. She doesn’t seem the type, and you’re supposed to be the enemy, and—”

“The enemy?” Vulpes said with a forced laugh. “I suppose my constant work to keep you alive has been quite misleading for you, then.”

Arcade sighed and pulled at his hair with a fist. “I can handle myself you know. I’m almost old enough I could be your father.” His voice was bitter, and it made his gut feel cold to think about it. “I’ve been keeping myself out of governments’ hands since I was born.”

Vulpes stopped and turned, holding out an arm to stop Arcade as well. “You’ve never faced an enemy like her.” His fingertips rested lightly against Arcade’s chest.

Arcade didn’t speak. Too much was going on; the confusion over whether to trust Six or Vulpes, the fact that Vulpes was supposed to be his soul mate, the war, the kiss, the hand on his chest.

“She is everything I have worked all my life to be,” Vulpes continued. His grey eyes were set and serious, his shoulders tense. “She can play any side of the cards she chooses to, and right now the only thing keeping her from choosing is a small group of friends that have been helping her, each with their own strong opinions.”

_No. No I don’t want to hear this from you._ Arcade willed him to stop, but still didn’t speak. His lips couldn’t find the words.

“Think about it carefully,” Vulpes said, leaning closer. “Veronica goes with her for a week, then suddenly decides to go back into the Brotherhood’s bunker without so much as word to pass on to her friends. The Ghoul decides to go with her? Rose of Sharon finds herself gifted with the ability to produce infinite amounts of her deepest vice. Craig Boone disappears without a trace.”

Arcade shook his head, trying to clear it. “So they’re busy, it happens.”

“Then why was she so surprised to find you here? Why did she apologize to you?” Vulpes pressed.

“How do you even know that?” Arcade said, squinting at him in confusion. “Never mind, don’t answer that. I don’t need to know.” He sighed and shook his head. “I don’t know.”

A couple laughed out by the main street, reminding them that they were could be overheard. Vulpes lowered his hand and moved closer again; Arcade could feel the heat radiating from him.

“You’re not safe here. One way or another, she _will_ get you out of her way,” Vulpes said, his voice barely audible.

Arcade breathed in his scent, all leather and just a hint of smoke and entirely _Vulpes_ in some way his brain couldn’t seem to describe. “Why do you even care?” he asked, not sure whether or not he wanted an answer.

For once, Vulpes didn’t seem sure of how to answer. In the moment it took for him to form a response, Arcade realized it wasn’t a question he should have asked yet.

“Do I need to remind you?” Vulpes asked, a hint of uncertainty in the slight waver of his voice.

Arcade closed his eyes and took in a deep breath. “I just think I should listen to both sides of the argument before I make any decisions. I want to hear what she has to say.”

The heat pulled away. Arcade opened his eyes to see Vulpes standing a few steps back from him.

“Very well. But I suggest you do so quickly, and preferably in public.” He was no longer whispering, and stood straight with his hands folded behind his back. “You might avoid being in enclosed spaces with her as well.” He turned and started walking down towards the main street. “And if you go back to the Followers, _stay_ with them.”

Arcade stared after him. “Wait,” he said, quietly, as though Vulpes were still standing close enough he could whisper it.

Vulpes kept walking.

“Wait,” Arcade said a little louder, starting to follow him. But Vulpes was already around the corner, and when Arcade reached it, he was nowhere in sight.


	14. Chapter 14

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is not at all anything I expected it to be. So, keep that in mind I guess? Or don't. Either way, I didn't intend to linger in Freeside so long. I'd be interested in hearing your thoughts on how things are going too! Comments always appreciated.

When Cass burst through the door of the shared room at the Wrangler with her shirt half off, one hand clawing at a man’s torso and the other clutching a half-empty bottle of whiskey, Arcade decided it was time to get out of town for a while.

“Whoops!” the man slurred, noticing Arcade’s horrified stare. “I guess this room’s taken.”

Cass muttered something under her breath, rolling her eyes. She started to walk back out, pulling her new-found friend by the arm, but Arcade stood up and gestured to the bed. “It’s all yours. I’m heading out anyway,” he said, draping the strap of a messenger bag across his chest.

He took the bottle out of her hand as he walked by, raising an eyebrow as he tucked it into the bag. She frowned at him in annoyance, but didn’t reach to grab it.

“Have fun.” He tried to sound like he meant it, but he knew she didn’t have any interest in anything he had to say. She would still be annoyed that he’d told her to slow down on the drinking. It was something she never took kindly to hearing.

She didn’t say anything, so Arcade shut the door and wandered towards the barroom floor. It was nearly dawn, but Arcade had stayed up for much of the night. Cass’ sudden arrival had only hastened his departure.

“You’re up early.” Francine was scrubbing down the bar with a damp rag. She raised an eyebrow. “James didn’t tell me you were here or I would have made them get a different room.”

“It’s fine, I was on my way out anyway.” He adjusted the bag’s strap, the half-empty bottle sloshing inside. “Can I get a few bottles of water? I’m heading out of town to pick up some ingredients for my research.”

“They finally convince you to get back to working?” she asked with a grin, reaching under the bar and procuring three bottles for him.

“Oh you know how it goes. I need to get my nose back to the grindstone eventually, otherwise we’ll never find out if a gecko’s spit can heal burns, or if a nightstalker’s shed tail skin can be used for bandages. You know,” he said, placing his caps on the counter, “the important things that only a dedicated researcher can contemplate for weeks on end.”

She laughed, taking the caps and dropping them into the register. “Well I’m glad someone is checking these things out.”

He smiled as he dropped the bottles into his bag. He wasn’t used to carrying much in it, and the weight of his change of clothes along with the water, his medical kit, and his plasma pistol felt heavy against his hip.

Francine gave him a long, serious look, her brows knitted together, jaw set. “You take care of yourself,” she said, unblinking.

Arcade nodded. “I will.” He knew she was still wondering about the night she’d checked in on him after his fight with Vulpes, but he didn’t want to explain it. The story was already too long and convoluted. “Thank you.”

She held his gaze for a moment more, then gave in and nodded. “All right. But if you’re ever in any trouble…”

“I’ll come right here,” Arcade said with a grin. “Thanks.”

Francine laughed, throwing her head back in a full-on cackle. “If you’re ever in any trouble, you better keep it the hell away from here!” She winked at him, smiling broadly.

“Oh! Oh, I see how it is!” Arcade laughed with her. It felt good to laugh about something. It felt as though it had been a long time since he’d been able to. He held his grin as he flipped the cover back over the front of the bag. “I’ll be back sometime.”

“Careful playing with that kind of commitment, Gannon. Now I’ll be expecting you.” Francine went back to scrubbing the bar. “And you know I’ll hold you to it.”

“Have the Sarsaparilla cold for me,” he called over his shoulder with a wave.

A securitron rolled down the main street towards the entrance to the Strip, another rolling by in the opposite direction. _Patrols?_ He waited, crouched down behind the broken shell of an old-world car, to see if they would pass again. Sure enough, a few minutes later they did. _Since when do securitrons make patrols?_ The hairs on the back of his neck stood up.

Only when they had both rolled by did he stand and jog across the street in the direction of Mick and Ralph’s. He knew he was eminently recognizable by his height and his hair, but wearing his lab-coat only made him stand out more. It was a long-shot, but there was always a chance they might have something in his size.

Freeside in the early morning was eerily quiet, save for the sounds of radios reverberating through the streets and echoing into abandoned buildings. An occasional drunken groan or drugged-up giggle would bring back memories of the night before, but the vast majority of the locals would spend much of the day sleeping in. Only the bright light and the heat of the sun directly above would wake them. The others would enjoy the peacefulness and the quiet until then.

Arcade stepped around a sleeping drunk, who was busily alternating between snoring and mumbling something about rats, and pulled on the door to the shop. It was still locked. _I… should have expected that._

But just as he started to walk away, he heard the latch click and the door pushed open – the nose of a shotgun nudging its way out.

“I told you, I’m not—”

“Woah, am I that scary when I haven’t slept?” Arcade asked quickly, raising his hands in front of him.

“Oh, Arcade. What are you doing up this early?” Ralph pushed the door open with one hand on the glass, lowering the shotgun. “I thought I was the only morning-person in Freeside.”

“You are. Can I come in for a minute?” He glanced down the street and watched the securitrons zoom by again.

“Sure, of course,” Ralph said, standing back to let Arcade through. He pulled the door shut and locked it again behind them. “What can I do for you?”

Arcade debated how much he could let Ralph know. Upstairs he could hear Mick still snoring loudly, and the quiet pitter-patter that meant Sam – the boy they had adopted as a crier – was up and around. He rubbed the back of his neck, trying to crush out the aching pain building in his skull.

Mick and Ralph were good friends, both to Arcade himself as well as the Followers. But they were also fond of Six, and if Six asked where he was…

It wasn’t worth the risk. The whole point of leaving was so she wouldn’t find him. He knew Vulpes would have his head if the man knew he’d willingly made himself easier to find. _Because Vulpes is the reason I’m doing this. Right. Ok._ He had to actively remember not to roll his eyes while Ralph was expecting him to answer.

“I’m heading on a trip,” Arcade said, looking around at the carefully sorted piles of junk on the counters. “Some of my clothes are getting a bit worn out. You have anything for giants?”

“Nope,” Ralph said with a straight face, crossing his arms over his chest. “You’re just going to have to make the trek in your underwear.”

“Oh. Are you sure? Because I don’t think Freeside could handle that,” Arcade said through a grin.

“I know some people who wouldn’t complain!” Ralph laughed, moving to a mountain of boxes along the wall. “I was actually going to send Sam over to find you today. We got some new stuff in that I thought might fit you.” He started rummaging through one of the boxes, lifting out stacks of neatly folded clothes.

“Oh! Oh that’s actually really surprising.” Arcade took a proffered pair of jeans, holding them up to his waist. “These don’t even look like they’ve been worn by a supermutant yet.”

“Yeah,” Ralph said with a short laugh. “A trader came in with a whole ton of things in odd sizes. He wasn’t able to sell them anywhere else, so I got them at a good price.” He stood up again and held out several different pieces of clothing. “If you want, you can try this stuff on around the corner there. Sam won’t be down for a while yet, and Mick likes to sleep in as late as he can get away with.”

Arcade decided to take everything Ralph had handed him, minus one green shirt in vibrant floral print that was just a little too “exciting” for his style. He decided to wear a silvery grey shirt from the pile – because it had long sleeves, which would help keep his arms from getting sunburned – and the sturdy jeans as well. The rest, along with his lab coat, was put into a box to be brought to the ( _Old. Mormon.)_ Fort when Sam was on his way to his usual post. He counted out the caps on the counter, leaving a few extra for Sam’s delivery.

“That should keep him happy,” Ralph said with a grin. “Thanks. I’m glad everything fit so well. So where you headed?”

_Oh. Oh no. No don’t ask that, I can’t lie, I’m a terrible liar._ “Oh, nowhere special,” Arcade said, scratching behind his ear and staring at the counter. “Just visiting an old friend.” _Wait, I don’t have many friends. Damnit._ “Up North,” he added, not sure if it was very convincing.

“It’s always nice to get out of the city for a while, I wish I could do it more often myself.” Ralph sighed, running a hand through his long hair. “I’ve got some friends out in the NCR that I haven’t seen in a long time. A lot of caravan runners.”

Unsure of what to say, Arcade just kept his mouth shut and nodded. _This is why they keep me in the back._

“Well,” Ralph put on a smile that didn’t quite meet his eyes, “safe travels. Enjoy yourself out there. I’ll make sure to have Sam bring this stuff over to the Fort for you.”

_Am I the only one who has trouble calling it that?_

“Thanks,” Arcade said, putting on the best smile he could manage. “I’ll be back before you know it.” Ralph unlocked the door and held it open for him. “Don’t have too much fun without me,” Arcade added as he went through it.

“You know we will,” Ralph said with a laugh. The life came back into his eyes, but Arcade didn’t quite believe it.

“Rabble-rouser.”

Ralph shook his head with a smile and waved. “Take it easy.”

“You too.”

The door shut and the lock clicked.

The sun was just high enough now that it could be considered daylight, but almost nothing had moved. To his right, a young child could be seen chasing a rat up and down the main street. To his left, a ghoul lounged against the wall of a ruined building.

“Hey buddy, spare a cap today?”

Arcade walked over to him, shoving a hand in his bag to pull out a cap. “Got any new tips today?”

The ghoul nodded once. “New to you, anyway.”

Arcade handed the cap over with a quiet laugh. “All right, what do you have for me? I could use some sound advice today.”

The ghoul pocketed the cap. “Don’t trust everything you hear, unless you hear it from me. Nobody thinks about us ghouls. They’ll say anything in front of us like we’re not really here. Probably because they don’t even notice we’re there.”

Arcade frowned. The locals tended to pick on the ghouls a lot, and NCR wasn’t tolerant of them at all either. “You, know, you can always come to the Old Mormon Fort. The Followers could find something for you to do there.”

The ghoul laughed, making Arcade jump at the sudden loud noise. “I do all right out here. There’s folks who need more help than I do anyway.”

It was something Arcade always offered, and the ghoul always politely rejected. Arcade had a sneaking suspicion it had something to do with Beatrix, the ( _Old Mormon_ ) Fort’s current resident ghoul. He shrugged and moved towards the gate out into the rest of the wasteland.

“Hey,” the ghoul said loudly. “I’ve got another one for you. This one’s on the house.”

Arcade stopped and turned back around, his hand resting on the gate.

“A good Fox can follow almost any trail,” he said carefully, staring into Arcade’s eyes. He waited, seeming to want to be sure Arcade understood.

Arcade pulled another cap out of his bag and tossed it to the ghoul, who caught it with a practiced ease. “That’s all right,” Arcade said pushing the gate open with one hand. “Let him find me.”

There was no turning back anymore.


	15. Chapter 15

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is again a weird chapter where things didn't go quite how I expected, so consider this all extra backgrounding with small amounts of plot. Or large amounts of plot, depending on your point of view. Ch 16 will be back to our regularly scheduled programming.

Novac, as always, was desolate and empty; almost entirely devoid of life, but for the ever-present sniper in the dinosaur’s mouth. Except, the sniper wasn’t ever-present anymore. When Boone had left, there had been no one to take over for the night-shift. Somehow it didn’t surprise Arcade that no one was volunteering to spend twelve hours every night sitting in a dinosaur and waiting to see if anything was going to happen.

The whole thing seemed silly, after what had happened to Carla. The sniper’s nest only worked facing one direction anyway.

Arcade had known Carla, unlike the rest of Six’s friends. As a frequent visitor to Novac, he knew most of the town. Boone was always quiet, but he’d seen him here and there on occasion – usually sitting at a table outside the community kitchen, smoking a cigarette while Carla fixed a meal for the two of them.

He’d never known a more unlikely pair.

Boone was little different before her death: quiet, surly, largely indifferent, and still very much a soldier even after leaving the NCR’s army. The same description applied now. If anything was different, it was only that stronger words should be used: silent, irritable, completely indifferent, and still entirely a soldier even after leaving the NCR’s army. The only noticeable difference was that he no longer smiled, ever.

Carla had been the one thing that had ever been able to make him smile, since the pair – and Manny – had moved to Novac. Not even a puppy playing in a pile of broc flowers would have made him smile, even back then, but Carla could light up anyone if she wanted to.

The problem was only when she didn’t want to.

She was sweet, liked to be helpful, and all in all a decent person for someone who sought only to make herself happy. Coming from a rather unfortunate district of Freeside, she’d found employment for a time at the Wrangler as one of the women draping themselves over the rail of the upstairs balcony in next to no clothing. When Boone found her at the bar one morning and offered to sweep her off her feet and take her away to a life where she’d never have to work a day again, he never knew she’d probably been _working_ just the night before.

She was happy enough to leave it that way.

After she’d died, Boone had vowed never to return to Novac once he’d taken out the person who’d signed her over to her death. Arcade, therefore was not entirely surprised when Manny came down from the Dinosaur that evening, and no one had gone up to take his place.

“Hey there stranger,” Manny said with a grin, catching Arcade on his way to Daisy’s apartment. “What’s going on, man?”

Arcade stopped and turned back to face him. “Oh! Hi Manny. Shift over?” A pointless question, he already knew the answer.

“Yep, just ended. What are you doing in town? Here for Daisy?” Manny asked, stretching his arms as he spoke. Arcade noticed he looked more tired than usual, with dark circles under his eyes and a newly developed slouch.

Arcade nodded. “She made a point recently of mentioning that I’ve been a bit lax about visiting, so I thought it would be a good idea to come back down sooner rather than later. She can be a bit feisty when she’s upset about something.”

“That’s that warrior spirit in her,” Manny said with a grin. “I know _I_ wouldn’t want to piss her off.”

“Tell me about it,” Arcade said with a laugh.

“Listen,” Manny said, with a glance up to Daisy’s window. Arcade followed his gaze; the lights were off. “It’s late and it doesn’t look like she’s awake. I was just about to go make some dinner. Wanna join? It’s been a while since I’ve had anybody to talk to this late.”

“Something about not waking the sleeping dragon? Sure.” It was later than Arcade had planned anyway, but he’d managed the trip without incident so he was content enough about it. His stomach told him that even Manny’s wretched excuse for cooking would taste good after so many hours on the road.

The pair wandered towards the community kitchen tent, Manny still stretching out his stiff muscles. The tent was devoid of life, but the lights remained lit. Arcade sat down at the table outside it.

“You have any problem with pan-fried gecko?” Manny asked, opening the refrigerator and shuffling items around.

“I’d be happy with pan-fried boot at this point.” Arcade dropped his head on the table. “With a side of whiskey.”

“There’s talk of people getting together to clean up the third bungalow so it can be turned into a bar,” Manny said, setting about making their meal. Arcade could hear pans clattering, but didn’t look up. “Maybe you could give up your research work and do something new.”

Arcade laughed, his eyes closed and head rolling to the side between his arms. “I can see it now: The Dino Cave Dive Bar. Today’s specials? The Extinction Event, and the Very Old Fashioned.” Arcade pulled out his last bottle of water and drank deeply from it.

“Oh I don’t know,” Manny said lightly, “I think I’ll wait for the Gannon Blaster to hit the menu.”

Arcade nearly spat out his drink, spraying half the counter with flecks of water. He attempted to swallow the rest, but still managed to dribble more down his chin. “And what exactly is in this drink, pray tell?” he asked, choking slightly.

“Oh,” Manny trailed out in a low laugh as he looked over his shoulder at the doctor, “can’t tell. Bartender’s special.”

“I shouldn’t have asked.” Arcade wiped his chin dry, shaking his head.

“I think you could make a killing at it. This town’s in need of something to do, somewhere to go to at the end of the day.” The smell of the quietly sizzling steaks drifted out of the tent on a soft breeze.

“Nah,” Arcade shook his head. “I already find excuses to avoid people at work, and I work in a clinic.”

“If you keep them drinking enough, they won’t have time to talk,” Manny offered.

Arcade rolled his eyes. “Helpful, really. Then the Followers would have to open up a clinic _here_ too.”

“Town’s gotta expand somehow,” Manny said, shrugging. “One way or another, this place has to expand and build up some sort of economy or it’s just going to die off. Carla, Jeanie-May, Boone, everybody keeps leaving… one way or another.”

“Has Boone been around lately?” Arcade asked, careful to keep his tone conversational. Suggesting over dinner that Manny’s childhood friend might be in danger seemed like a bad idea.

“Nah.” Manny flipped the steaks in the pan, letting them sizzle on the other side. “He’s been back once or twice, but he never stays. First time he came back, he apologized for thinking I had something to do with Carla. I took it to assume he was _also_ apologizing for being an asshole all the time. Since then? I’ve only seen him because I can spot a red beret a _very_ long way off.”

“Oh.”

“Besides, I thought he was hanging around with that courier chick now. She’s a bit young for him, if you ask me, but–“

“Oh it’s nothing like that,” Arcade assured him. “No their relationship is strictly…” but then, Arcade wasn’t sure what to say. He realized he’d hardly seen any of Six’s friends in a long time, except for Cass. The memory of her stumbling into his room at the Wrangler invaded his mind, and his face instantly scrunched up in a frown. But as for Boone and Six? He wasn’t sure he’d seen them together in months, always separate. “…platonic.”

Manny shrugged. “It’s legal if she’s into it. NCR doesn’t have any real jurisdiction over the Strip, and she could just say she’s 18 anyway. Without papers it’s hard for them to prosecute.”

“I’m not hearing this.” Arcade dropped his head back onto the counter.

“And I mean, Boone’s a good-looking man. Playing the mysterious-silent-surly type always seems to get him women–”

“I don’t need to hear this!” Arcade raised his voice, but couldn’t completely hold back his laughter.

“And that _courier,_ well she’s got–”

“ _Enough_!” Arcade pounded a fist on the counter, squeezing his eyes shut. “I don’t need to be thinking about Boone, and I don’t _want_ to be thinking about a 17-year-old girl.” _Who tried to gift me into slavery in the Legion less than a month ago. Apparently. Maybe._ She didn’t seem so amusing suddenly.

“Well now!” Arcade recognized Cliff Briscoe’s voice behind him. “You two are having a little too much fun here!”

Arcade turned to face him, meeting his broad grin with a modest smile of his own. “Hi Cliff.”

“Good to see you, Arcade. Didn’t know you were in town! You should have stopped in to visit!”

This was precisely why Arcade hated visiting. If he couldn’t sneak in to Daisy’s apartment, somehow half the settlement would descend upon him in minutes.

“I wasn’t. I just got here. About–” Manny placed a plate down in front of him, “one pan-fried gecko-steak ago.” The fork and knife were in his hands before he even realized it. Sure, it was gecko steak, but it _wasn’t_ iguana bits, and that was just about all that mattered.

Arcade took a large, hunger-driven bite, the slightly rubbery texture making his jaw falter. _Still not iguana bits…_

Cliff clapped a hand on Arcade’s shoulder, making him cringe internally, before going over to investigate the kitchen. “So! You staying with Daisy again, I presume?

“He got here after she went to bed,” Manny spoke up before Arcade could say anything. He sat down across from Arcade with his own plate. “Do you still have that room key? I’m trying to convince him to stay on and start that bar we keep talking about.”

“Oh! Yes I do, I have it on me right now. If you’re thinking about staying, seeing as you’re a friend and all, I could give it to you at a great discount.” Cliff sat down next to Manny with a bottle of Sunset Sarsaparilla. “Especially if you’re looking to start a business. We need all the businesses we can get.”

“Why don’t you just get No Bark to do it?” Arcade asked, shaking his head. He took another bite of his steak, trying not to regret it. “I’m sure he’d make a great bar tender. Better than me, anyway.”

“Well that depends,” Manny said, shaking his head, “on whether the bar serves Commie Ghosts or not.”

They all laughed, glancing in the direction of No-Bark’s shack, but he was nowhere to be seen.

“Seriously, it’d be nice to have a new face around town,” Manny said, already finished with his plate and bringing it to the sink to rinse. “Everyone here knows and likes you–”

“By some miracle,” Arcade muttered.

“ _And_ ,” Manny continued, “I think it would be good for you. You’re always complaining about Freeside and how pointless your research is. Get a change of pace. Life’s quieter out here. Less people, less violence, less interest to the Legion down the road.”

“How comforting.”

“They haven’t bothered us yet,” Cliff interjected, “and I don’t know as they will. It’s a small settlement, and with Boone gone they’re less likely to attack us at all. But, if it comes to that, we’re all armed to the teeth here.”

“It’d be better to just let them claim Novac and roll through.”

Arcade stared at Manny. “Did you really just say that?”

“Don’t get me wrong,” Manny added quickly, “I don’t think the Legion are all sunshine and flowers, but I’d rather be a Legion citizen than a dead Novac one.”

“Have you seen them?” Arcade asked, incredulous. “They rape and murder people for _fun_. They’re as close to evil as anyone gets.” _Most of them, anyway._

“Like I said, I don’t like them, but I’d rather be claimed by them than be dead.”

The very idea of it infuriated him. He wanted to shake Manny, grab him by the shoulders and shake him until he understood it. There was nothing good about what the Legion did. But he couldn’t risk revealing that he may have almost been enslaved by them only weeks before. He didn’t even know if it was really true.

“What’s your take on it?” Arcade asked Cliff, trying to calm himself down.

“If it were me? I think I’d just leave if I heard they were coming,” Cliff said, sitting up straighter. He stared down at his hands on the counter and sighed.

“Cliff!” Manny said, sounding amazed. “What about Dinky?”

“I know, I know. But I can’t defend it on my own, and I like the idea of being alive to a good old age and retiring somewhere in the NCR someday. I get the feeling that the Legion wouldn’t take kindly to that dream of mine,” he admitted, dropping his head. “It’s not a choice I want to have to make.”

Manny shrugged as he sat back down. “I guess we’ll see, if the time comes. I dunno man, I change my mind about it all the time.”

There was silence between the three of them as Cliff slowly finished his water. Manny played with a loose stitch on the rim of his beret, leaving Arcade to his own thoughts.

Something wasn’t sitting well with him. The idea of leaving Freeside for good was strangely appealing to him, but being any closer to the ( _Legion_ ) Fort than he absolutely had to be wasn’t a part of any package deal he was looking for. Sure, he’d heard a _few_ good things from residents in Legion territory. Lower taxes, better security, well maintained water and sewage systems – which led to better community health, low crime, roads being repaired and maintained…

All of it sounded great, until you remembered the slavery, the crucifixions, and the treatment of women as a whole. And that’s leaving out the insane megalomaniac dictator and the obsession with ancient history.

“I’ll give you the room key for 40 caps,” Cliff said, interrupting Arcade’s thoughts. “That’s the same as $100 NCR, if you have it. Normally we sell them for 100 caps, but you’re a friend to a lot of people here, and we’re short on residents lately.”

Arcade looked at the key held out in Cliff’s hand, narrowing his eyes as he debated the idea. It would put him that much farther away from Six, but also that much closer to the Legion. The question of whether Six was a threat was debatable. The Legion, on the other hand, was definitely a threat.

“Or, if you’d prefer, you could have Boone’s old place. Or Jeanie-May’s, I suppose. It’s empty, save for the kitchen set.”

“Daisy took the cabinets, though,” Manny said, picking dirt out from under his fingernails with a pocket knife.

“Oh darn, that’s right.” Cliff huffed in annoyance. “We’ll have to find some new ones for that place I guess.”

“Come on, Gannon.” Manny reached across the table and shook his shoulder lightly. “It’s not like you’ll get a better deal anywhere else.”

Arcade sighed in defeat. “All right. I’ll take the room. I don’t promise I’ll stay, but–” Manny stood and smiled, and Cliff made a whoop of approval. “ _But_ if I do decide to leave, I’ll give you back the key.”

“Can’t ask for better than that,” Manny said, smiling at Cliff and Arcade in turn.

Arcade reached into his bag with a grumble, pulling out an NCR bill and slapping it on the counter. “You’ll take this stuff?” he asked, sliding it across to Cliff.

“Sure do. Some folks won’t take caps, only NCR money. Most of them are coming straight out of Shady Sands and insist caps aren’t any sort of valid currency.” Cliff pocketed the bill and handed Arcade the key. “I’ll draw up all the paperwork tomorrow for you, but the place is yours.” Cliff stood and headed off towards his bungalow.

“That’s it?” Arcade called after him.

“That’s it! I just need you to sign a bill of sale, but that can wait until the morning. Go ahead and get settled in. I’ll see you tomorrow, I’m sure.” Cliff smiled and shoved his hands in his pockets, a new spring in his step as he walked away.

Manny laughed. “This town’s everything to him, if you hadn’t already noticed by now. Come on, I’ll show you which room it is.”

Arcade wanted to protest, but Manny lived in the motel as well. There was no point arguing. He just wanted to be alone again to think. A big part of him felt like he was betraying the Followers by leaving his post. _As if I’m there any of the time now anyway._

“I think you’re making a good choice,” Manny said, not looking at him as they walked down the short stretch of dark road towards the motel. “Novac’s not much, but it’s home.”

“I’m not making any sort of choice yet,” Arcade argued, but there was no fight in it. “I just need a bed for the night. I walked all day to get here.”

“Roads bad? I can never tell with the Dinosaur only facing the one way.”

“No, not really. Just a lot of sun for a very pale-skinned doctor. I don’t get out much. I try pretty hard not to.” _It always seems to go very badly whenever I do._

“Ah, yeah. Well listen,” they stopped in front of the stairs at the front of the motel. “It’s good seeing you. Nice to have someone around to talk to that doesn’t blame me for losing our night-shift sniper.”

Arcade nodded, unsure of what exactly to say. “It’s good to see you too.” He turned to go to his new room, but added, “are any couriers heading through soon?”

Manny raised an eyebrow.

“Not that one. Any. _Any_ courier but that one.”

“Tired of her?” Manny asked, sounding surprised.

“Long story,” Arcade said, shaking his head. He didn’t want to get into it, possibly ever.

“Well, the next one isn’t due back for about a week, he just went through this morning.”

Arcade groaned closing his eyes and letting his head fall back.

“But there’s a caravan that should be here in a day or so. It’s not hard to convince them to send small packages, even if it’s just getting them to a courier for you.” Manny hid a yawn behind his fist. “What are you trying to send?”

“A letter. I need to tell someone… where I am.”


	16. Chapter 16

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My apologies for the long wait! Hopefully this slightly-longer-than-usual chapter will make up for it. This one goes all over the place. I expect that someday it will be edited heavily, but for now? It will do.

A knock at the door broke Arcade out of his thoughts. He silently groaned and rolled his eyes, turning to check the time – but it wasn’t the end of Manny’s shift yet. As silently as he could, Arcade tiptoed to the door and looked through the peephole. Outside stood an NCR Ranger in full gear.

Panic shot through every nerve in his body.

They’d found him.

“Arcade, I have some things for you.” The voice sounded somewhat familiar, but through the muffle of the filter. He wrestled with reason, trying to calm himself down. _Only three people outside this town know where I am, and two of them are women. Unless it’s considered juicy gossip that I’ve left town._

It couldn’t be…

Arcade opened the door anyway and let the man through, breathing in the familiar scent as he brushed by. The leather coat flapped against Arcade’s leg as he went by.

"What are you doing here?" Arcade asked, shutting the door.

Vulpes breathed deeply as he took the helmet off. He shook his head a few times his hair flopping back and forth; it seemed Vulpes was letting it grow out a little. He tucked the helm under his arm.

"I got your letter," he said, pulling it out of the inside pocket of his duster. He tilted his head to the side, wearing that strange half-grin he was so fond of. "Did you think I would lose you if you ran away?"

"What?" Arcade's brow furrowed in confusion. "No. I mean. I don't know."

Vulpes raised an eyebrow, pocketing the letter again.

"I just didn't want you wondering where I was," Arcade said, glancing behind the closed window curtains. "I mean-" _That wasn't how I meant to say that._

Vulpes smile grew, just a little. "I no longer wonder." He looked around the small space with his back to the door, not moving. "May I?"

"Oh. Oh yeah, sure. Sorry." Arcade stepped back and gestured for him to come in. "Just sit wherever, if you want. I mean you don't have to. I mean."

"I brought some of your belongings," Vulpes said, swinging his duffle bag around to the floor in front of him.

“Oh. You didn’t have to do that,” Arcade said. “But thank you.”

"You made it sound as though this might be a more permanent endeavor than intended." Vulpes glanced up at him as he spoke, setting his helmet down on the table. Arcade watched his fingers playing with the knot on the bag. “Nice shirt.”

“What?” He looked down at what he was wearing, a short-sleeved red button-up. “Oh. Thanks. Ralph got some giant-sized clothing in and I happened to grab most of it on my way out of town.”

Vulpes grinned suspiciously, but didn’t say anything.

Arcade wondered for a moment if the trader Ralph had mentioned was actually Vulpes. He shook his head, pushing away the idea. _It’s probably just the color._

Arcade sat down on the end of the bed with a long sigh. "I don't know. They gave me the room at a really good price because people know me here."

Vulpes nodded, slowly pulling out various items from his pack. Several pieces of clothes, a stack of papers, a lockbox that had been buried under his bed that not even Julie knew about. Somehow its appearance didn't surprise Arcade at all.

“There are many well-priced rooms in the Mojave,” Vulpes said. “I am surprised you chose one closer to Cottonwood Cove, rather than farther away. Some have heard you’re ‘visiting a friend up North.’ Others seem to think you’re away on a research mission for the Followers. Only Beatrix knew better.” He glanced up at Arcade, adding, “she knows better than to correct anyone, however.”

“Are you working with her?” Arcade asked, curiously. “And Rotface?”

“Ghouls are a valuable resource,” Vulpes said, but didn’t commit one way or the other. Arcade assumed it was as close to a ‘yes’ as he was likely to get.

“Well,” Arcade started with a deep sigh, deciding to drop the question. “Here, I‘m closer to Daisy, and she's getting older now. Plus there’ll be no more deranged patients with bizarre infections to worry about, for the most part people leave me alone. Except when they’re trying to get me to open up a bar." He leaned forward resting his chin on a fist. "Is that my jar of star-caps?”

Vulpes nodded, adding the jar to the small pile on the table. "Julie mentioned its importance to you."

Arcade couldn't help but laugh. “Oh Julie.” The caps had been given to him as a tip once by a particularly touchy-feely patient. The whole experience had been so strange that Julie had insisted he keep them as a memento. The little blue stars glowed bright in the dimly lit room. “I’ll have to tell you that story sometime.”

Vulpes smiled but didn’t respond. He held out the box for Arcade, raising an eyebrow. “I did not open this, but I must admit my curiosity,” he said, and watched Arcade begin to paw through its contents.

“Thank you,” Arcade said in a softer voice. “How did you even know where to find it? Not even Julie knows.”

“Beatrix,” Vulpes said simply. “She was extremely helpful. She said to tell you, if you were curious, she found it after seeing you bury it there once, and only dug it up herself out of concern for the safety of the Followers. This was apparently when she was new to Freeside.” He cocked his head to the side, eyes defocusing as though he were trying to remember more. “I believe she seemed to feel… remorse… for the action.”

Arcade, only half-listening, pulled out a gold locket, lifting it carefully by the chain, and held it out in front of him. “This belonged to my mother,” Arcade explained, watching as the tiny heart spun on the chain. “It means a lot to me. She didn’t have much to leave me when she died. Her clothes weren’t much use to me, and they were the wrong size for Daisy, so we just sold them. Somewhere north of Shady Sands, I think. This is the only thing I kept of hers.”

Vulpes watched, acknowledging the piece of jewelry, but still said nothing. He leaned back in his chair, crossing his legs at the ankles and resting his arms behind his head. The way his eyes softened and his lips turned up in a slight smile made him look so at home there, but something seemed off still.

Arcade gently lowered the necklace back into the box. “I’m sorry,” he said with a slight groan, “you probably don’t want to talk about dead family.” _I’m like a ballerina with words._ “I’m an idiot sometimes.”

“I am not offended,” Vulpes said. “Nor are you an idiot. In fact I believe you to be one of the more intelligent men I know.”

“You must know some pretty unfortunate people then,” Arcade said with a laugh, then remembered that Vulpes was likely referring to his associates – who were primarily members of the Legion. _Prima ballerina indeed._

Arcade looked through the box and realized one by one that each item was something that just didn’t fit well with Vulpes: the shot glass from his first drink on his 18th birthday; a photograph of his first boyfriend, complete with love-note on the back; an assortment of his father’s pins and medals from the Enclave; a handful of NCR coins he’d always assumed would just be a novelty in New Vegas. It even still held, folded up at the bottom, the old porno mag Daisy had given him when she was still trying to convince him to ‘give her grandchildren.’

“Jeez, with all this stuff I must seem more and more like a 17-year-old girl than a 36-year-old man,” Arcade scoffed, dropping the lid back down on the box. “Maybe I should just keep my mouth shut at this point.”

 _That_ made Vulpes laugh. “Silentium prudens est, sed verba sunt aura,” he said, grinning. [Silence is wise, but words are gold.]

Arcade snorted a laugh. “Sola fatui caedent sanguinem ab saxo.” [Only fools beat blood from stone.]

“Felices fatuos…” [Happy fools…]

Arcade tore his eyes away from Vulpes’ intense gaze; it was too much for him. Everything about Vulpes was all or nothing. Either so subtle it could barely be seen, or so blatant that it could not be overlooked. Arcade wasn’t ready for the intensity Vulpes brought to the table.

“So,” Arcade said, getting up and moving to stand by the window. “What else brings you to Novac?”

“Else?”

Arcade laughed bitterly. “You can’t be out here just to visit me.”

“Do you have any reason to believe that?” Vulpes asked. Arcade could hear him get up, feel the heat radiating from Vulpes’ chest on his back.

“What, that a handsome young guy might be visiting town for reasons other than seeing a 36-year-old man with a complete lack of social grace?” Arcade felt his knees weaken as Vulpes put a hand on his shoulder. “Just a guess.”

“An incorrect one,” Vulpes said quietly. “I am not even due to return to the Fort for some months.”

“I don’t know how to trust you,” he mumbled. It felt like a schoolboy confession. “Not just you. Anyone. And with this war?”

“Nihil bonum simplex est.” [Nothing good is simple.]

Vulpes was standing so close behind him that Arcade could feel the breath on his neck. He crossed his arms, trying to ignore the images his mind was presenting him with.

“Nothing is simple at all,” Arcade said with a frustrated groan. “Whether it’s good or not, nothing is simple.”

“Perhaps,” Vulpes conceded, turning Arcade around to face him. “But is it then no longer good?” He held Arcade by the arms a moment longer before moving back to his chair. “If you allow the want of simplicity to rule your life, you will find little worth keeping in it.”

“Is it so wrong to want a little now and then though?” Arcade snapped. “My friends are all mysteriously disappearing, Cass is probably going to die of alcohol poisoning, a teenager is supposedly trying to kill me but I don’t even have solid evidence. I’ve left my home and bought this room just because you said I wasn’t safe there, but you’re on the opposite side of the war and—”

A knock on the door interrupted Arcade’s rant, successfully freezing him mid-sentence. He remained frozen in place until a second knock jolted him back to life. His eyes darted from the door to Vulpes and back. “It’s Manny. He keeps stopping by when his shift is over.”

“Then perhaps you should open the door?” Vulpes asked, raising an eyebrow.

“ _Gannon, I know you’re in there, I heard you bitching. Come on, let’s get some food._ ”

“What about you?” Arcade asked in a strangled whisper. “He’ll find out you’re here!”

“Then let him learn.”

Arcade threw his arms up but gave in. He pulled the door open just enough for Manny to see him. “Oh, Manny. Hi.”

“Yeah, ‘oh hi’ yourself, Gannon. Let’s get going, I’m starving,” Manny said with a laugh, stepping back from the door.

“Uh, I’m a little busy right now.” Arcade cracked his neck to one side, trying to find something to be doing, but no ideas came to him.

“With what?” Manny asked, confused. “This is Novac, and you’re not working anymore. What is there to do?”

“I, uh—”

But Arcade didn’t have to say any more. Vulpes had stepped up behind him, and quietly pulled the door the rest of the way open.

“He is trying to say that he has unexpected company, without being rude to either of us,” Vulpes said with a nod of greeting. “My apologies, I didn’t realize I would be intruding.”

“Oh,” Manny’s eyebrows raised in surprise. “I’m sorry, you should have said something. I’ll just go and—”

“Nonsense,” Vulpes said with a shake of his head. “I have yet to dine as well. We shall all go.” He waited a moment for Arcade to move. “If no one objects?”

“Right. Sorry. Yes. I mean, no. No objections.” Arcade silently cursed his luck as he picked up his keys from the table.

“If you hand me my bag,” Vulpes added, “I had to take out a pair of mantises on my way here. I could grill them in no time.”

Arcade dutifully lifted the bag and held it out to Vulpes, watching him throw the heavy pack over his shoulder with ease while he blindly pawed at the table for his keys. Once his fingers found metal, he snatched them up and straightened himself, dropping his gaze.

Vulpes held out a hand to Manny. “Name’s James. I’m a friend of Arcade’s.”

Manny accepted the offered hand and shook it, though somewhat hesitantly. “I don’t think he’s mentioned you yet, you’ll have to scold him,” he said with a short laugh.

“Perhaps I shall,” Vulpes said, turning back to Arcade with a Grin.

“We haven’t known each other very long,” Arcade added hurriedly. He could feel his cheeks turning red, and quickly marched on ahead of them. “Let’s get going.”

“So James, you been with the NCR long?” Manny asked, looking Vulpes up and down. “You’re probably the youngest ranger I’ve ever seen.”

“I was born into it,” _James_ explained. “My father was a Ranger. Died at the Dam. I didn’t. Got a promotion.”

“Oh, I’m sorry,” Manny said. “We lost a lot of good men there. Have you ever been to the memorial up in Boulder?”

Arcade tuned out of the conversation. He was thankful Vulpes wasn’t going with the traveler story again. The idea worked well, considering how many people came through all the time, but the accent had been… grating.

 _How many personas does he have?_ Arcade wondered whether this was new and just for use in Novac, or if he’d used it before. Or even if it was just a one-time thing. _No_ , he shook his head free of the idea. It wouldn’t be possible to remember so many differing stories and keep them all straight. This was probably just the one he used whenever he wandered around in NCR gear. However often that was.

Arcade sat down and tried to pretend he hadn’t been ignoring the conversation. Manny was always oblivious enough, but he was fairly sure that Vulpes wasn’t going to buy it.

“So,” Manny started, in what was probably an attempt to sound conversational. “How did you guys meet?” He sat down next to Arcade, watching him expectantly, but Arcade handed off the question to Vulpes with a gesture.

“Probably the same way he meets anyone else,” Vulpes said with a laugh. He picked up a frying pan and scrubbed away a stuck bit of char with a rag. “I got shot, just North of Freeside. I was going to go to New Vegas Med, but they had a line out the door. Something about livestock going crazy in the sharecropper farms. So I went over to the Followers instead. Would have treated it myself, but I couldn’t quite see that part of my shoulder.”

“You shouldn’t be pulling bullets out on your own anyway,” Arcade muttered, staring down at the table. He hated lying to people.

“What were you doing up there?” Manny asked, confused. “Doesn’t seem like much would be happening North; all the action is South and East right now.”

Vulpes glanced at Arcade before he continued. “Somebody heard there was a Legion safehouse up there, I got sent in to check it out. Turned out to mostly be a bunch of Fiends in scavenged armor.” He scoffed, shaking his head. “Most of it wasn’t even Legion, just painted red.”

“Fucking idiot fiends,” Manny said, rolling his eyes. “Either of you want a drink?”

 _Wait, is he trying to tell me something?_ Arcade wasn’t sure if it was just part of the story Vulpes was spinning or not, but something about the way he’d said it… _A Legion camp north of Freeside?_ It didn’t seem right, but still…

“Gannon?”

“Hm?”

“You want something to drink?” Manny repeated. “Are you alright man? You seem really off tonight.”

“Oh. No, I’m fine. I mean, yeah I’ll have something, but I’m fine.” Arcade tripped over his words trying to figure disentangle his thoughts from what he was trying to say.

“I believe his distraction is my own fault,” Vulpes said, setting out three plates of grilled mantis for them. “I surprised him with my visit.”

“You must be the one he wanted to send a letter to,” Manny said, comprehension dawning on him. “I figured it was just Julie or something.”

“Yeah,” Arcade mumbled through a mouthful of mantis, but he wasn’t really listening. Had the Legion made a move towards New Vegas? It didn’t make sense to do so before taking the Dam, so did he mean they were ready to move on that? Was Vulpes trying to warn him?

Even if the Legion was preparing, or ready, to move on the Dam or the Strip, there wasn’t anything that Arcade could do about it. He could leave, sure, but that wouldn’t help much. The Legion was expanding ever Westward, and Arcade was long since tired of packing up and moving. No, the only move he’d consider would be the one he’d effectively just completed.

If the Legion came through Novac, it seemed that more than half the citizens would be willing to stay there under its rule. Cliff was the only one obstinately against the idea, aside from a few women who had already made plans to move to Shady Sands when the time came. Even the stubborn Doctor Strauss wasn’t interested in leaving, despite many residents’ attempts to remind her that the Legion was always looking for more doctors.

The Legion wasn’t exactly new to Novac either. The slaughter at Nipton, which Arcade reminded himself was orchestrated by the man who had just cooked dinner for him, wasn’t very far down the road. Carla had been taken away in the middle of the night under mysterious circumstances by Legionaries as well. _Probably by Frumentarii_ , Arcade realized with a shudder. And Searchlight…

Somehow Arcade’s appetite was going away. Rapidly.

 

After Manny had ( _finally_ ) decided to call it a night, Vulpes followed Arcade back to his room. Arcade hadn’t said much at their dinner, and nothing since, but Vulpes seemed content with the silence. The only thing on his mind now, though, was sharing a room with a Legionary. Again. Living in Novac made it seem more reckless than it had at the ( _Legion_ ) Fort. It was a land _plagued_ by Legion assaults – of all types.

Vulpes set his bag back down on the floor under the table.

“Were you trying to tell me something, earlier?” Arcade asked, still hovering by the door. “When you were talking about a Legion Safehouse?”

“Yes,” Vulpes said, shrugging off his duster. He draped it over the chair, carefully folded over once. “But it became apparent that you were distracted, and I chose quickly to abandon that line of conversation.” He pulled at the clasps of his armor and set it aside as well.

Arcade rolled his eyes and sat down on the bed. He stared at the faded window curtains, watching the flickering light outside.

“Your courier has been busy in your absence,” Vulpes continued. “It seems she feels more confident without you in the city.”

“Oh?”

“She has been building a militia from pro-Legion citizens, of all factions, and setting them up within a camp built around an abandoned farm, North of the Strip – which she plans to seize control of once the Legion moves on the Dam.” Vulpes’ voice was calm and even, seemingly devoid of concern. He shook the dust out of his boots.

“ _What?_ ”

“What I said, however, was largely true,” Vulpes continued, lounging against the wall. “It consists largely of Fiends, who chose to paint their armor to match their new allegiance. I find it rather…” he wrinkled his nose in disgust, “repugnant.”

“She’s amassing an army?” Arcade shouted, jumping up from the bed.

“Yes.”

“Did the NCR really send someone to look into it?” Arcade asked, not sure he wanted to know the answer.

“Yes. And they really did send _me_ , for that matter.” Vulpes patted a hand on his duster. “The paperwork’s all in there.”

“You’re in both armies?”

“It was hardly difficult,” Vulpes said, sighing. “If you have skill enough not to point the gun at yourself and can sign your own name, they will gladly have you.”

Arcade dropped back to the bed, unsure of what to say. “I think I need a smoke.”

Vulpes pulled a faded pack of cigarettes and a lighter out of the pocket of his duster, offering them to him.

With the all the energy of a dead ghoul, Arcade took them and shuffled back out the door and onto the balcony. He didn’t stop Vulpes from following. Vulpes leaned back against the door while Arcade slouched over the railing, letting the tobacco attempt to soothe his nerves for him.

“So.” Arcade pulled a deep drag and let it linger for a moment, using every last excuse to delay the question he didn’t want to ask. “What did you tell them?”

Vulpes sighed behind him, the sounds quickly followed by the click of the lighter. He didn’t say anything, and Arcade didn’t press for an answer. A moment later Vulpes was leaning on the railing as well, staring off across the dark horizon of the wastes. His hand hung loosely off the rail, cigarette dangling precariously between two long, elegant fingers.

“I haven’t told them anything yet.”

Arcade twisted to face him without standing up. “Oh?”

“I am uncertain what the effects of telling them about her faction would be, one way or the other.” He lifted the cigarette to his lips, still gazing out at nothing in particular. “I am uncertain of how the NCR will react, of how Freeside will react when they eventually find out, or of how even Caesar will react. She’s a wild card.”

“Oh.”

“But that is not why I haven’t reported in yet, to any faction.”

“Oh?”

Vulpes straightened, Arcade parroting the movement, and ran a hand through his hair. He kicked lightly at the bottom rails with his bare foot, then turned away.

Arcade reached out to put a hand on his shoulder, but froze halfway there. He lowered his arm again, changing his mind, and returned his attention to his cigarette.

“I feel… compromised,” Vulpes said quietly.

Arcade, for lack of anything to say than ‘oh,’ kept his mouth shut.

“Weeks ago, this would have been simple. Routine. Report back to the NCR it was a false alarm. _Just a bunch of fiends looking to play Legion and scare people off._ Return to the Fort and inform Caesar that the Courier is gathering support for the Legion to the North of the Strip. Let Freeside do what it will.” He rubbed the back of his neck with a white-knuckled grip. “Now..?”

Vulpes turned back to face Arcade again. “I need to know where you stand. Where I am, in regards to you. What will happen if I continue doing what I’ve been trained all my life to do.”

“You’re saying…” Arcade stared, not wanting to make a fool of himself but needing to be sure either way, “you haven’t done anything yet, one way or the other, because of me?”

“Yes.”

Arcade blinked hard and pulled away his glasses. “So the fate of the Mojave now rests with me?”

Vulpes wore a pained expression, closing his eyes and leaning back against the door again. “No,” he said, voice even quieter.

“Then you’re going to do the same thing no matter what I say.”

Vulpes didn’t say anything.

“What was it you said? Truth in omission, no lies in silence?” Arcade said with a forced laugh.

“I must do what I feel to be right for the Legion. If I were still as lowly ranked as Decanus, I could simply desert, and little would come of it,” Vulpes said, in a tone of forced calm. “But I am not just a Decanus. I am the leader of the Frumentarii, nearly level in rank with the Legate himself. If I were to desert, my men would crumble. I must be the most loyal man in all the Legion, or watch it turn to ash.”

“You’re a Frumentarius,” Arcade said incredulously, “you could get away without them noticing.”

Vulpes shook his head. “Quite the contrary. As a leader, I am well known amongst the higher ranks.” He dropped his head back and put his cigarette to his lips, the red glow lighting up his face. “They would know within a week if I had left.”

“How? Don’t you go off for months at a time or something?”

“I still contact them every night by radio.”

“Oh.”

“This also assumes I want to leave the Legion,” Vulpes added, sighing heavily. “Which I do not. Ideally, I would have you there to celebrate with us when we win the Dam and turn New Vegas into New Rome.”

“I don’t see that working out so well.” Arcade had always been skeptical about the idea of the Legion wanting the New Vegas Strip to call their own. Something about an army of men not supposed to give in to vices taking over the capital of sex, drugs, and alcohol didn’t seem plausible.

“Perhaps not. But, what Caesar wants, Caesar takes.”

“What about Six? What’s going to happen about her?” Arcade, despite everything that he’d been told about her, still couldn’t help but worry about her. Even if she was tearing up the Mojave and turning it into her own personal army.

Vulpes laughed bitterly. “I should like to think she will soon meet a very bad end, but it is unlikely. He may have promised her the moon, or more, but it is probable that he will simply gift her to someone of high rank, as a reward for her services to the Legion. Perhaps Lucius, or even myself.” From the look in his eyes, the idea wasn’t particularly appealing to him.

“As for her militia, any of it that remains after taking New Vegas will be assimilated into the Legion, most likely. If they are uncooperative, they will be treated the same as any other uncooperative soldier.”

“How can you say that so calmly?” Arcade wondered out-loud. “It’s like death doesn’t affect you.”

“I have seen men and women die in all ways; by nature, by sword, by simple bad luck. Even by choice, on some occasions. It is simply another part of life. How can a soldier grieve for the lives he takes in a war that does not end?” Vulpes countered. He took one last drag on his cigarette, then stepped forward and stamped it out on the railing.

Arcade watched as the moon began to climb up over distant mountains, wondering if the war _would_ ever end. If anything was certain, Arcade was not a soldier. He couldn’t handle even the idea of killing another; it was part of why he’d taken the medical track with the followers. He didn’t like the idea of anyone dying.

That alone was enough to make it difficult for him to accept Vulpes. Vulpes was no standard soldier, either; he was a ruthless and creative killer when he felt it would alter a situation to his advantage. _Nipton and Searchlight_ , Arcade reminded himself. But somehow the man beside him didn’t seem like the same one that had done those things.

“I can’t condone it, you know that,” Arcade said, keeping his voice quiet. “And I can’t say I’ll accept it, either. But…” He wasn’t sure he wanted to say it, but it felt cruel to leave Vulpes with nothing after all the man had been willing to share. “But I can understand it. I need you to do what you think is best for you. If that’s serving the Legion, then so be it.”

“I have no option.” Vulpes kicked the railing again in frustration, his hands shoved into his pockets. “This decision effects more than just myself.”

“Would you leave, though? If you didn’t have to worry about so much?” Arcade asked, not looking at him.

“I would consider it…” Vulpes’ voice was soft, barely audible. “I don’t know that I could answer that. If I did not know what it is to have so much hinging on my every word, I might still feel the same. But if I knew it, and did not have to concern myself with it… I might.”

Arcade picked at the dirt under his nails. He knew it was an unfair question, but he had still hoped that Vulpes would consider packing up and moving somewhere far away where no one had ever heard of the Legion. Of course, there they would likely only find a faction or two that were just as bad, or worse. There was no winning in the wasteland. Not even by those who came out on top.

“Thank you,” Arcade said, turning back towards the door. “Even though part of me wishes you’d just kept this to yourself, I’m glad you felt you could come to me about it. I don’t know what I could possibly offer you that would help either of us feel better about any of this… But, thank you.”

Vulpes bowed his head in acknowledgement. “Perhaps we could discuss it more in the morning. For now, we should attempt to sleep.” He stepped to the side, allowing Arcade to open the door.

Arcade didn’t say it, but he hoped they would find every possible opportunity to never discuss it again.

With the door locked and the curtains covering the windows, Arcade found he could fall asleep with next to no trouble. As unlikely as he knew it to be, the addition of a certain Legionary stretched out across a bedroll on at the other end of the room only seemed to make it easier.


	17. Chapter 17

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Buh. How has it possibly been so long since I updated this?? I thought it had been like 2 months and I guess it's been like 6??? I'm so sorry. WTF. Time? What even is that.

But Vulpes wasn’t there in the morning to discuss anything.

Early in the morning there had been a brief rush of cool air through the room, and when Arcade finally opened his eyes the bedroll – which had been easily seen from his pillow the night before – was no longer spread out across the floor. He closed his eyes, trying to ignore the heavy feeling in the pit of his stomach. The idea that Vulpes had decided to leave without saying anything hurt more than he wanted to admit.

Except, when Arcade sat up, he could see the bedroll tucked away under the table. The ranger duster still lay across the back of the chair, the helm still on the table.

He mentally berated himself for thinking Vulpes would leave when he’d specifically said he’d stay. Then he berated himself for being so sure of Vulpes so suddenly. He cut the chain of guilt before scolding himself for that too.

Arcade wasn’t often known for his early mornings, but when he stepped outside in freshly laundered clothes the sun was already nearly directly overhead. From the balcony he could see four men working in the courtyard below, and the door to the third bungalow was open. Manny and Cliff were filling an old wheelbarrow with a mix of dirt and gravel and rubble, Ranger Andy waiting to haul it away. Vulpes ( _oh god_ ) bared his back to the sun as he lifted a wooden beam from the pile and carried it away with surprising ease. His skin was darker than Arcade remembered.

He watched the group working for several minutes before catching Vulpes’ eye. Thankfully, Vulpes said nothing, just smirked silently and continued his work. Arcade’s gaze drifted along the Legionary’s torso, the light catching in rivulets of sweat, and along the tight denim gripping his legs.

It wasn’t exactly a secret that Vulpes was a good-looking man, but seeing him using those well-toned muscles for something so _normal_ was…

Arcade tried shoving the thought away, turning his gaze back to the other three. Except his eyes apparently hadn’t been the only ones following Vulpes’ body. His cheeks felt hot and his jaw clenched as he saw Manny watching Vulpes with an eager gaze.

Before he could stop himself he’d called out to the group, ruining his chance to avoid them.

“Who’s moving in?”

Three sets of eyes turned to squint up at the balcony. Vulpes kept working, now pulling a dilapidated old bedframe through the open door of the bungalow.

“The Dino Dive Bar,” Manny shouted up to him with a laugh. “Thought we’d have a better chance convincing you to run it if we cleaned up the place.” He jerked his head in Vulpes’ direction. “Your friend, Jim, here offered to help.”

“Jim?” Arcade mumbled, just loud enough to hear himself. “You’ve nicknamed him?” _Even I don’t have a nickname for him._

“What?” Manny called. “Get down here and help out. I can’t hear you all the way up there.”

Arcade sighed, shrugging off his shirt and throwing it onto the bed, which he stared at longingly, but shut the door on once more. _No use sweat-staining a clean shirt._ His nerves tingled at the idea of both him and Vulpes being shirtless so close to each other. Though he was no Greek god, Arcade at least tried to keep himself somewhat in-shape. He recalled the first night in Vulpes tent back at the ( _Legion_ ) Fort, when he’d been too uncomfortable to even take off his shirt to sleep. It seemed almost silly, now. Almost.

“I really don’t get much of a choice with this, do I,” Arcade said, suppressing his laugh. The idea of running a bar didn’t excite him at all, but at least it was something to do other than listen to Manny all night. Though, now that he thought about it, Arcade realized that the installation of a formal bar would likely only make their conversations last even later into the night.

He moved to help Vulpes pull the ancient mattress out of the small house, lifting the dragging end and holding it level with his hips. Vulpes mirrored him, nodding his thanks.

Cliff pointed over to the motel building. “Put that out over by the office door, would ya? Could always use a spare.”

Arcade nodded, following Vulpes with it. “Morning Cliff. Manny, Andy,” he added, smiling to each in turn. It felt forced, but polite. Cliff smiled back. Manny was too busy watching Vulpes’ body to pay any attention to courtesy, though, and Andy glared at the sniper disapprovingly.

“Morning,” Andy muttered as he rolled the full wheelbarrow away in the opposite direction.

When they were a safe distance, Arcade shot Vulpes a warning look. “Does he know you’re not really a ranger?” he hissed, leaning forward over the mattress slightly. “If he gets suspicious–”

“The ranger and I are well acquainted,” Vulpes said in an assuring voice. “He worked with my aforementioned father.”

“How–”

“James _was_ the name of the man’s son. The real one, however, joined the Legion and gave up his identity to me. A good soldier that never cared for his father or the NCR. It was a simple enough task to assume the identity.” Vulpes grinned, his teeth barred. It was somewhat unnerving, when paired with this information.

The whole concept in general was making Arcade more and more uncomfortable. Still, the distraction of Vulpes’ toned chest was enough to draw his mind away. _God I need to get laid, this is pathetic._

They set down the mattress so that it leaned against the wall of the building; Arcade dropped down to his knees to put it down carefully, glancing up. He caught Vulpes’ eye, and didn’t fail to miss the raised brow and barely hidden smirk.

“Shut up,” Arcade muttered, standing up and turning away.

“Didn’t say a word.” Arcade could feel Vulpes’ grin, and the eyes on the back of his neck.

“I’m surprised to see you without something to hide that precious pale-skin of yours, Ganon,” Manny said, laughing. He leaned on the shovel he’d been using, digging the toe of his boot into the newly exposed dirt. “Aren’t you always complaining about the Mojave sun?”

“I just did laundry.” Arcade and Vulpes moved back into the filthy bungalow. “You realize it will take days to get this place cleaned to a point anyone could tolerate it? Even a Freeside drunk would be repulsed by the level of grime in here.” A radroach corpse stuck out of a desiccated nest, a pair of human skeletons piled on top of each other on the floor by the window. Arcade assumed that they had been none-too-delicately pushed off the bed only moments before. Bits of fabric and leathery skin still hung loosely around the bones.

Mold grew up the walls in lines, the carpet bubbling and mushy where moisture had eaten away at it in ages past. He didn’t even want to think about the state of the kitchen.

“Yeah, whole thing’s going to need to be gutted,” Cliff said, walking in and looking around. He stood with his hands on his hips, shaking his head. “Andy here knows a guy who’s good with tile, so we’ll be ripping up the carpet too.”

“Good.” Arcade turned to face Cliff as Andy entered. “It needs it. And a coat of paint. Or four.” Andy kept his mouth shut, only nodding.

“There’s a caravan working for the Crimson Caravan Company that deals in raw materials,” Manny added. His nose wrinkled at the sight of the mold on the walls. “Once we get an idea of just how much we’ll need, we can put in an order with them.”

Cliff moved forward, knocking on patches of the wall, listening for higher and lower tones. “I think we can knock out most of these walls and open the place up. Then we can put the bar across the back of the room, maybe a few tables out here.” He gestured to where the front of the room, waving his hand around.

“While I agree that this place needs a lot of work,” Arcade glanced around the room, his eyebrows creeping farther and farther up into his hairline, “I still don’t get why you want to make it a _bar_.”

“Because hopefully it’ll attract some business,” Cliff said. His tone was almost annoyed, but the slope of his shoulders suggested worry, not anger. “Even if it’s just folks passing through that stop off for a bit to eat or to wet their whistle, it’s caps coming in.”

Manny chimed in. “The way things have been going lately? Nobody wants to stick around long. Jeannie May dying, Carla disappearing, one of our snipers gone? And all we’ve got is stinking dino toys and rockets.” He turned briefly to Cliff, adding, “no offense.”

“Nah, it’s true. Nobody wants the dino toys.” He shrugged, shoving his fists into his pockets.

Arcade’s eyes narrowed, watching Ranger Andy across the room. His arms were crossed and his jaw set. The man cracked his neck to one side; Arcade couldn’t help but mimic him.

“You haven’t said much about this,” he said, watching the man. “What are your thoughts?”

“Here we go,” Manny muttered, walking back outside. “I’ll be shoveling.”

“I don’t like it,” the Ranger said simply. “The more people we attract to to Novac, the more likely the Legion is going to come up the road and try to take over. That didn’t go so well for the last town they visited.”

Vulpes, who had nearly disappeared somehow in the half-lit space, suddenly spoke up. “It’s unlikely the Legion will venture this far towards New Vegas yet.”

“Yet,” the Ranger parroted. “Yet.”

“Yes. Yet. It is inevitable. But the more complete the town is when they get here, the more likely they will be to try to induct it into their—”

“Their graveyard,” Andy said bitterly.

Arcade’s brow was damp with sweat, and he wasn’t so sure it was just from the heat. Talking about Nipton with Vulpes was something he’d tried hard to avoid from the beginning.

“Nipton _was_ a bit…” Cliff reached in the air for the words, unable to find them.

“Deplorable?” Vulpes supplied. “The slaughter was unfortunate, but I doubt they would go to so much trouble again. To destroy an entire town like that would take far longer than they are willing to spend.”

“Right,” Andy said, nodding. “They’re more likely to just burn it to the ground and kill everyone, rather than make a show of it.”

“If you create a town they would be interested in—” Vulpes started, but Andy’s eyes grew dark as he cut him off.

“I don’t think we should be expanding our town based on what the _Legion_ would want if they came by.”

“Better to be a town they like than a town they deplore,” Vulpes said, voice quiet. “Would you rather they simply destroy Novac?”

“If it means they don’t get anything, I’d destroy the town myself,” Andy snapped.

“Andy!” Cliff interjected, but Andy wasn’t done.

“If we’re all just going to sit here and think like that, we may as well be a part of the Legion all ready,” he hissed. “I, for one, refuse to be a part of that. If any of you want to bow down like whimpering dogs, _well that’s fine with me_. But I won't be a part of it.” He stormed from the room, shoving Cliff and Arcade out of the way with his arms as he passed. Manny jumped out of his way from where he’d been leaning against the doorframe, wandering back over to the group.

“Easy now, everybody just settle down a moment,” Cliff said, holding out his arms. “There’s no use thinking about how to try to build this town up based on a war that might come through. That could happen anywhere and any day, not just nestled here between the NCR and the Legion.”

Vulpes nodded. “Reasonable approach.” Arcade just shrugged, but Manny grinned.

“I’m glad at least somebody’s come to their senses around here,” Manny said, clapping Cliff on the shoulder. “I came here because I was tired of fighting. This place is all we’ve got now, let’s make it our own while we can.”

 

After several hours tearing apart the filth of the bungalow, Cliff, Manny, and Arcade gave up for the day – too disgusted by the stench and the rot to want to continue. Vulpes, despite having no reason to be assisting with the work at all, seemed almost disappointed. Arcade assumed it to be something of his Legion work-ethic.

He shook his head, already upset with himself for thinking about it again: _Legion._

Vulpes had discussed with Cliff and Manny the state of the bungalow’s structure, deciding that the frame and foundation would be salvageable even if the rest of the building needed to be scrapped. After a brief shared meal, they all went their separate ways to scrub down in cold showers.

“ _In_ ,” Arcade shouted, trying and failing to sound serious as he shoved Vulpes towards the bathroom at the back of the room. “You wreak of sweat and god knows what. Get in there and _scrub_.” He gave one last solid push to the man’s shoulders, grinning at Vulpes laughter as he half-tripped towards the wall.

“You’ll forgive my being unaccustomed to such luxuries as showers,” Vulpes said over his shoulder as he walked into the bathroom.

Arcade turned away when Vulpes began to strip unabashedly – which arcade had to admit was reasonable, as the room didn’t have a door.

He sat leaned on against the wall far enough away that he couldn’t quite see in. “I suppose it’s not something you get much in the Legion…”

Vulpes stuck his head around the doorframe. “It’s not something you get much as _any_ soldier.”

Frowning, Arcade pointed a stern finger towards the bathroom, raising his eyebrows.

It didn’t take a third telling; Vulpes laughed and disappeared again, and moments later the sound of running water filled the room. “The soldiers at the Fort and at Cottonwood are fortunate enough to have nearby bodies of water to bathe in.”

“Does the Legion normally restrict water?”

“No.” Vulpes’ voice blended into the patterns of the water as it fell. “Unlike the barbaric system found in Freeside, water is free to all Legion citizens.”

“Except you’re all slaves,” Arcade countered, the thought turning his tone sour. “Even… even you… are a slave…” His words trailed off as his mind and his mouth disconnected. _Just a slave with a very long leash._

“Caesar as told his officers that slavery is only a temporary measure until the NCR threat has been quelled, and I believe him. It is insane to hold hostage thousands of men and woman for their entire lives, does nothing to build love for one’s country.”

The sound of the water splashing around drifted out of the bathroom and flooded Arcade’s mind with unbidden images of of it streaming through Vulpes’ hair and down his neck. Arcade shook the thought away, but it lingered in the back of his mind regardless. “But it’s still _slavery_ ,” he argued. “There’s no justifying it.”

“Is it better to be equal in slavery, or unequal in freedom?”

“What?”

“In the Legion, no man is worth more or less than the man to his left or his right.” The water turned off. “We are given food, water, shelter, and employment. Soldiers protect the lands we absorb; we do not simply abandon them to suffer at the hands of Raiders and Fiends like the ever-drifting NCR does. We do not favor the rich over the poor, because every living body is a resource in some way. The NCR both squanders and ignores such resources every day it fights back against us.”

“But you’re not _given_ employment.” Arcade’s voice began to rise, his brow furrowing. “You’re forced into it.”

“Would they not require work anyway?”

Arcade groaned and pulled at his hair, squeezing his eyes shut in frustration. “ _It’s not the same._ ”

“No, but the results _are_ the same, perhaps better,” Vulpes countered, walking out of the bathroom. Arcade opened his eyes to see him crossing the room with a towel draped loosely over his hips, water still dripping from his hair down the back of his neck; the sight made his words stick in his throat for a moment.

“You’re talking about _people_.”

“Yes,” Vulpes said, reaching into his dufflebag. “People with families. People who will have everything they need to keep their families alive and well.”

Arcade cracked his neck and pressed his palms hard against his eyes. He kept them shut when he heard the sound of a towel hitting the floor.

“Not all of Caesar’s ways are perfect,” Vulpes said, his voice growing quieter. “But his intentions are good. You must think of it in terms of the long run, not simply the now.”

“What are you going to tell them?” Arcade asked meekly. “About Six’s militia?”

Vulpes was quiet for a moment. When Arcade finally looked up, he saw Vulpes standing in a clean pair of jeans with his hand on the doorknob, holding an unlit cigarette and his lighter in his other hand. “Caesar will know of her treachery,” he said, holding Arcade’s gaze. “The NCR will only hear of a group of Fiends in red. The courier will likely move on New Vegas within a month, using her securitrons in combination with her new militia. And while they lick their wounds, we will take it from them.”

Arcade nodded, not entirely surprised. “I can’t warn them, can I.”

“You could,” Vulpes said slowly, pulling the door open. “But…”

“But you’d rather I didn’t.”

“I cannot abandon the Legion or forsake them. But I cannot ask you to do the same to your people, either.”

Arcade’s jaw tightened as he nodded again, looking down at the floor. _This_ was why he couldn’t hate Vulpes. He was too damn reasonable. This was _war_. How could he just let his friends in Freeside stand unknowingly in danger? But then, it didn't feel quite right to betray Vulpes' trust either.

Not looking up at Vulpes, he moved into the bathroom and stripped down for a shower. He heard the door to the apartment open and then close again before he turned on the water. It was cool, but not quite cold.

Even if it had been cold, he probably wouldn’t have noticed.


	18. Chapter 18

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Freshly edited! Much better (though still less than fantastic). New chapter coming up soon.
> 
> Also, to make life easier, because the Latin in this takes some explaining, I've posted the notes (on said Latin) over [here](http://adira-tyree.tumblr.com/post/121129532002/notes-on-the-latin-in-chapter-19-of-a-fox-a-wolf) on my tumblr page. Just open it in a new tab and you can switch between...

       The next morning, Arcade awoke with a dull ache in his back and arms – which he blamed entirely on Manny and the Dino Cave Dive Bar. He wasn't used to manual labor anymore - or trekking back and forth across the desert every few days, for that matter. He hadn't exactly gotten fat from his day-job, but he was certainly out of shape, and the idea of getting out of bed wasn't entirely appealing after the previous day's work.

       Vulpes, of course, was already fully dressed and packing his things into his duffle-bag. When he noticed Arcade was awake, he paused, reaching around for words as much as items. explained he had various commanding officers to report back to, and needed to leave as soon as possible. Arcade convinced him to at least start a rumor in Freeside that the war would soon be coming.

       “The Garrets will do alright,” Arcade argued, more with himself than with Vulpes. “They’ve got enough of an arsenal stockpiled to outlast any war. And the Fort, er, my fort, not your fort, can just close up until the fighting’s over. Julie won’t fight anyway.”

       “I’d imagine not, from what you’ve told of her.” A hint of a smile lingered on his lips. “Few battles are fought to find the tightest of hugs.”

       Arcade grinned weakly, but couldn’t quite laugh. A pounding ache began to creep up the back of his neck and into his temples.

       “It’s likely the majority of the battle will take place on the Strip,” Vulpes continued, checking his pockets and making sure his revolver was loaded. It was a massive thing, with a scope on top that made it appear absolutely ridiculous. “Freeside will simply have to follow under whomever lords over the casinos and their tribes.”

       “How can you expect me to sit here and pretend everything’s going to be alright?” Arcade snapped, balling his fists in his hair. “To leave everyone’s fate up to chance and hope it works out?” He slammed a fist down on the bedside table so hard he sent it flying onto the floor on its side. The single drawer slid partway open, sending various objects tumbling out; a half-empty pack of cigarettes, a lighter, a pencil, the timer that had started all this grief for him.

       Vulpes leaned back against the wall across from him, his NCR helm tucked under his arm. “I can’t.” His voice remained quiet, his eyes dark as they gazed at his boots. “Nor can I bring myself to do anything to stop you.”

       “And I’m supposed to thank for you that, am I?” Arcade said, with more spite than he’d intended.

       In seconds Vulpes had crossed the room and pinned him down on his back against the bed, his teeth bared in anger. “You are not a soldier, you cannot possibly know what it is to see a liability walk into your life and suddenly find yourself looking for ways to bend rules you’ve known as law for years. To wonder if it might be worth it to throw away your values because someone else doesn’t believe in them,” he spat. His fists tightened against the worn fabric of Arcade’s shirt. The pull against his shoulders made his back ache worse.

       The words fell into Arcade’s mouth, open with shock. He tried to collect himself to retort, but Vulpes wasn’t finished.

       “You call me _slave_ and insist the man I have looked up to and dedicated my life to is nothing less than insane nor more than a petty _warmonger_. When I offer you information out of _trust_ , the only true currency I have, you give _anger_ in return. You tell me my way of life is _incorrect_ because yours is different. I tell you that I am turning my world upside-down for your sake alone, and you are _insulted_ that I do not do more.”

       Vulpes relaxed his grip, standing up straight again and backing away with slow, forced steps. He ran a hand through his hair, fingers flushed from the sudden restoration of blood-flow, and stared at the ragged curtains on the window. His breath came in long, loud huffs through his nose as he forced himself to calm down. “And yet I continue to return to you. I go out of my way to find you, make excuses that need only be given to myself.” He turned back around as Arcade pushed himself up onto his elbows. “You vex me, Follower.”

       Arcade huffed out a tiny laugh. “I don’t know that I’m much of a Follower anymore,” he said, his voice weak. “I’m sorry. I don’t have good people skills. Like to argue too much,” he muttered. “I guess I never got out of the habit of arguing about pre-war political structures and carried it over to post-war ones.”

       “I admit, I enjoy our conversations usually. Even our arguments over politics.” Vulpes slipped off his Ranger duster and laid it out over the end of the bed before sitting down beside Arcade and sighing heavily. “Especially our arguments over politics, actually. But your views can sometimes be… more different than mine than I am prepared for.” He clenched and unclenched his fists as he spoke. 

       “Oh?

       “I think the prominent example is that you view us all as slaves, where as we view ourselves as equals.”

       “Oh.”

       “But I understand your view as well,” Vulpes continued, laying back on the bed. He tucked his arms under his head and stared up at the ceiling. It made his biceps suddenly seem huge. “How can we be equals when we all hold more power over those beneath us?”

       “You have to admit, it seems entirely contradictory.” The ceiling seemed to have more cracks in it than Arcade remembered. He stared at them intently.

       “In its way. We view it more as having equal value, with increased responsibility. If a recruit dies, another takes his place. If a centurion dies, another takes his place. If Caesar dies, another will take his place. If we all live and die just the same, we cannot have more value than those surrounding us.”

       Arcade’s eyebrows crept further and further up into his hairline. “So the crucifixions and the lashes are just for kicks, or..?”

       “Does the NCR not punish its criminals?”

       “Well of course, but–”

       “But our methods are more barbaric?” Vulpes asked, not waiting for an answer. “An execution is an execution. Corporal punishment is fast and memorable, whereas imprisonment requires time, space, and resources - all difficult to maintain in a nomadic army. By making examples of criminals, we are able to keep our men in line with ease.”

       “You can’t possibly justify decimation.” Arcade didn’t want to turn to look at Vulpes, but found his eyes drawn towards the man anyway.

       “No, I can’t. But again, it is effective. I lost good men to it as a Decanus.” Vulpes’s gaze seemed to lose focus. “And for my own actions, rather than theirs.”

       “Do you see why I have trouble believing in your ways?” Arcade kept his voice quiet. Outside he could hear footsteps walking along the balcony. By the gait, he guessed it to be Daisy. She paused at his door briefly, but didn’t linger. “She’ll be looking for me.”

       Vulpes nodded, sitting up. “And I should be moving. I’ve already spent a questionable amount of time in Novac.”

       They both stood, neither moving quickly. Arcade pocketed his cigarettes and lighter as Vulpes pulled his duster back on and picked up the helm and duffle. He waited with his hand on the doorknob until Arcade nodded, then held it open and gestured for Arcade to go first. _Chivalry isn't completely dead? Who knew._

       The air outside was even drier than Arcade remembered, leaving his mouth dry. He blinked fast against the strong wind; the usual lazy breeze that drifted through the town had been replaced with strong gusts. It wasn't hard for him to guess what it would lead to.

       “Sandstorm on the way,” Vulpes said, glancing in all directions. He gestured with a nod to the Northwest. “It’s moving fast.”

       “Should you wait it out?” Arcade asked, suddenly every bit as worried for him as he was for everyone in Freeside.

       Vulpes shook his head, knocking his knuckles on the top of his helm. “The filters on these masks are quite effective, even in such situations. Even a simple Decanus helm would be suitable enough.”

       “If it’s a strong storm you could get stranded,” Arcade countered. A little voice in the back of his head reminded him that Vulpes was probably so well acquainted with the Mojave that he could find shelter nearly anywhere at a moment's notice. He told the little voice to go away.

       “I am trained for such situations,” Vulpes said, moving towards the stairs. His face was a blank mask, but Arcade was fairly certain the man was actively working not to roll his eyes.

       Arcade put out an arm to stop him. “If it’s moving fast, it won’t be that bad to wait it out,” he said quietly. The sky was deceptively blue above them, but a sand storm could be deadly. The winds and dust aside, they were horribly disorientating for anyone caught traveling through one, and Vulpes seemed stubborn enough to want to try.

       Vulpes stopped with Arcade’s hand pressed flat against his chest, fingers splayed across the worn armor plate. His eyes fell shut and he bit the inside of his lip. The man’s slow, even breathing did nothing to hide the rapid pulse beating in his neck.

 _Hah. He’d be proud of me for noticing._ Arcade wasn’t ready to admit how happy that thought made him.

       Vulpes dropped his bag, then the helm on top of it, turning to face Arcade again with tired but not ungrateful eyes. Arcade only then realized how close they were standing, barely inches apart. He didn’t move away.

       “Auribus teneo vulpem,” said with a light laugh. His words were barely audible, though the only real sound was the fluttering of tent walls in the wind, muffled by their distance.

       “Carpis vulpem,” Vulpes said, equally quiet, dropping his head against Arcade’s shoulder, “sed non accipis.” Arcade felt Vulpes’s fingers digging painfully into his hips, then relaxing as though it had been unintentional. He chose not to complain, trying not to miss the contact.

       “Nimitur in vetitum…”

       Vulpes laughed, a light and playful laugh Arcade wasn’t used to hearing from him. “Non time.”

       Despite himself, Arcade nodded, forcing down the thought that fearing Vulpes was in fact the ideal thing to do. “I don’t know what to do about you. What to do _with_ you. What not to do.”

       “I find myself in a perversely similar situation,” Vulpes said, raising his head. A smirk played onto his face as they locked eyes. “Though I have had some ideas.”

       This time, Arcade did back away, his cheeks flushing. He was grateful his blood had chosen to pool there, rather than somewhere else. “We should make sure everyone’s inside for when the storm gets here. Daisy’s probably locking down the kitchen already. She knows the wind, she’ll have already noticed.”

       Vulpes nodded, already moving his things back inside Arcade’s door.

       Shaking his head, Arcade shifted into storm-prep gear, and was halfway down the stairs by the time Vulpes closed the door. He grumbled and muttered to himself, thoroughly disinterested in going door-to-door in preparation for a storm. “I need a smoke.”

* * *

       As soon as the storm passed, Vulpes set out for New Vegas to report in to Camp McCarran. He would tell them that the threat to the North was simply Fiends wearing red as a scare tactic. Try to reassure them that there was no looming Legion threat, so that when they did get attacked by that threat they would be left scrambling. Arcade went back to his room, alone. He didn't feel like dealing with Manny, or Cliff, or Daisy. Or anyone, for that matter.

       It still didn’t sit well in Arcade’s gut, leaving his friends in Freeside with nothing more than a rumor and a prayer. But then, were they really friends?

       Surely Beatrix didn’t deeply care either way what happened to him, having lived through generation after generation of humans dying around her. Julie was his boss more than anything. The Garrets? Just businessmen. Cass probably hated him by now for his constant attempts to sober her up, and he hadn’t heard from Veronica, Raul, or Boone in months. Mick and Ralph? Maybe the closest thing he had left to real friends, but more out of solidarity than anything else.

       Then there was the question of Six. At this point, Arcade refused to call Vulpes an outright liar – even if the idea of a teenage girl plotting a (failed) attempt to sell him into slavery and then plotting his death as a result was entirely absurd to him – but perhaps he was confused somehow? Maybe she’d thought that by giving him to Caesar she’d be ensuring his safety in the coming months? _Yeah. Definitely. Because that makes sense._

       No matter how he spun it, there was no sensible alternative that didn’t make Vulpes a liar. And Arcade didn’t like anything that it implied.

       Still, having no hard evidence beyond a few awkward conversations and a weird moment in the Lucky 38 made it hard. Everything he had to go on was something Vulpes had told him. Which looped the argument back around to not wanting to call Vulpes a liar. _And so the sheep ran in circles, while the fox waited for it to calm the fuck down._

       The Sheep wasn't doing a good job of calming down, however.

       He wracked his mind for some idea of what could help any of them, pulling out numerous strands of his blond hair without meaning to. They drifted down onto the table where he should have been having dinner - but he couldn't bring himself to eat.

       Keeping the pro-Legion locals (not that Arcade was particularly fond of them) out of Freeside and the Strip would keep them alive if the Legion attacked first, while the local factions fought to keep the Legion out. Even if it worked and the Legion backed off, Six’s militia could wipe out an exhausted group of citizens with ease. If the militia attacked first and the Legion came in to clean up the mess after? Then they'd probably _all_ get wiped out, regardless. Either way, there seemed to be no end to the Legion's numbers. Just like what was happening with the Dam, they would come back and try again eventually if they lost. Caesar would cross his Rubicon and take his Rome, or he would die trying - at which point someone else would take his place, and the whole thing would continue on anyway.

       He decided, with more vehemence than he really knew how to handle, that he couldn’t just sit around and wait for something to happen. The idea of anyone, _Freesiders especially_ , attacking his home… What would happen to Mick and Ralph? Their boy, Sam? The ghouls? The thought of dead Kings lying in the streets made his stomach churn and blood boil. If it came down to it, The King himself would probably get out and fight alongside his boys. He slammed his fists into the bed as images flashed unbidden through his mind, of everyone from Rotface to Rex broken and bleeding.

       It didn't matter if they were really his friends or not. They were living, breathing people, and they were good people for the most part. Good people who would likely die all over a stupid Dam that nobody really even knew how to operate consistently without error. And damn Vulpes for making him think it might turn other way - the outcome of war was always the same. War never changed.

       Without another thought, Arcade packed a bag, scribbled a quick note to Daisy and stuffed it under her door, and set out North - with hate bubbling in his heart. When this was all over, if what Vulpes had been saying about Six all along turned out to be true, he might just change his mind on crucifixion. If he had been lying? Well, maybe that might end the same as well.


	19. Chapter 19

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And suddenly, there was a long outpouring of words... This chapter is pretty heavy on dialogue all around, but I think most of my writing is in general so maybe it's just that it was a longer chapter than I expected. I wouldn't mind opinions on that. =]

       The trip to New Vegas had gone far worse than Arcade expected – not that he’d expected much when he set out entirely on a whim (if a whim fueled by righteous anger could be counted as a whim at all).

       In his fervor to reach the city quickly, he hadn’t packed nearly enough water. For that matter, he hadn’t really packed much of anything. No food, a few random pieces of clothing, and two bottles of water total. He rationed it carefully, keeping his head and neck covered in the open desert with a pale blue t-shirt. The wind that had come with the storm had gone, but the sand and the dirt hadn’t, leaving a dusty stillness lingering everywhere. It clung to his glasses, but he didn’t dare wipe it away for fear of scratching them further.

       Halfway to The 188, he ran into a group of raiders and discovered he was critically low on ammunition for his plasma defender. There wasn’t even anything of use that he could pick up off the raiders once he’d obliterated them into piles of green goo; they’d chosen to bound into battle with nothing but brass knuckles and pool cues, clad in discarded kitchenware and shredded bits of fabric. One still had a fresh Med-X needle sticking out of his arm when he tried to attack Arcade. What made it all the worse was the thought that it probably wasn’t even the saddest sight he’d seen. Working in Freeside for the Followers had meant he was pretty well numb to such things.

       Somewhere not far past the old REPCONN building he found himself cowering behind the fattest Joshua Tree he could find quickly, so nervous he practically giggled, as a Legion scouting party approached. The party consisted of nothing more than a group of three recruits, arguing about how to hide pistols in their bedrolls.

       Arcade began to feel silly, realizing that he could have shot them from a distance with ease and been on his way. He shuddered as he realized how detached he could be from killing them; maybe he’d been too hypocritical about Vulpes’ ability to simply pick off his enemies. Still, he found he didn’t want to disenfranchise himself from the ability, either.

       The scouts, unknowingly, walked within 15 feet of Arcade. He was content enough then to let them pass by; while attacking at range might have gone alright, up close and personal they would shred him to pieces. To his surprise, and near-horror, they met their demise from a distance anyway. He spun around, somehow caught completely off-guard despite the situation, not daring to run. He stared out across the desert in the direction the shots had come from, squinting to see better.

       In the middle of the road stood a Ranger, half-hidden in the dust still floating through the air. His shoulders hung low, his head cocked to the side, watching Arcade. The red eyes of the gas mask glowed, surrounding him with an eerie, ghostly aura as the color reflected in the thick air and the dying sun. He stared Arcade down for a long minute, maybe more for all Arcade’s thudding heart could tell, before silently turning away. The massive scoped pistol remained in his hand as he padded down the road North.

 _Wait,_ he wanted to shout, but his throat was just too dry. All the way to Freeside he wondered if it had been Vulpes. The posture had been all wrong, but with Vulpes that didn’t really mean anything.

       Once he was facing the gate though, he found he had a whole new conundrum. Now that he was there, outside the gates to Freeside and ready to march in and save the city, he had no idea just what he wanted to do. He’d left in such a hurry and traveled so fast, intent on reaching the Strip by nightfall, that he hadn’t even bothered to think to formulate a plan.

       He stayed there, sitting on the ground and leaning against a pillar, just watching for what could have been forever. The city’s lights blinked, flickered, and buzzed, gnats swarming around them. He thought through his options, but they all seemed like bad ones.

       One option would be to just burn down the farm North of Vegas, leaving all the militia to roast inside – but even in his anger Arcade wasn’t violent enough to do that. Another would be to simply pretend he’d returned from his travels, then disappear again as soon as seemed feasible. He could try to find Six and sort out this mess once and for all – by actions or by words. He could hole up in the Wrangler like Vulpes had initially suggested.

       Or, if he felt desperate, he could even try to _find_ Vulpes.

       Where would he even be? McCarran? Back on the Strip? Somewhere in Freeside? Maybe even back on the road, heading South towards the Fort.

_His Fort. Theirs. The other one._

       With no better ideas, and in dire need of hydration, Arcade fixed up his sweaty hair as best he could, and marched through the gates into Freeside.

       “Welcome back,” came the familiar voice of Rotface from his usual place.

       Arcade nodded a greeting in return, realizing again that this was the first part of Vulpes’ network of eyes across New Vegas. It was no wonder the ghoul could survive so well living off a rare few caps at a time. “Thanks. How’s it going?” He pulled a loose cap out of his pocket and flicked it with his thumb into the ghoul’s open hands.

       “City’s real tense. They say the war is gonna get here any day now, ignore the Dam for now and come straight for the Strip.” Rotface leaned forward and spoke much quieter. “And from what I’ve heard, it’s a rumor you should be passing on too. You might want to walk right back out and pretend you never came.”

       “That’s two tips,” Arcade said shaking his head. He tossed another coin to the ghoul, but he didn’t seem to care.

       “I ain’t kidding. If I was you, I’d go right back to where I came from.” He leaned back again, lounging against the wall. “I’m just bursting with good information,” he said, raising his voice to its normal volume again. “What can I say, it’s a gift.”

       “Thanks,” Arcade said. “Well, I’m off to the Wrangler. Time to drown my sorrows and dry throat. I’ll see you around. Stay safe.”

       The ghoul nodded, but didn’t respond.

       The streets seemed oddly deserted, nearly devoid of almost all of the locals. Even the addicts had vanished, though he could see some of them holed away up in the skeletons of old apartment buildings. The conditions inside were even more deplorable, deteriorated down into such states that most could never be restored, but it was easier to hide like a rat in a hole than out in plain sight.

       He moved through the deserted streets with trepidation, hell-bent on getting inside and up to the bar as quickly as possible. Once he reached it, however, nothing could have prepared him for what he found inside.

       Cass, in all her drunken glory, was dancing to live music on one of the tables in the middle of the floor. Her jacket and shirt were both long discarded, leaving her in just a faded, worn-out lacy bra that left little to the imagination. He groaned, taking excruciating effort not to plunge his thumbs into his own eyes. She whooped loudly, jumping from foot to foot as men and women clapped and cheered her on. Even some of the prostitutes leaning over the balcony seemed amused.

       “Has anyone else thought to tell her she might want to lay off the booze?” Arcade asked the Garrets, both of them shaking their heads behind the bar. They moved in unison like a perfectly matched set.

       “Nope,” Francine said, eyebrows raised.

       James followed her up with a quiet “haven’t dared.”

       “After you left she had quite a row with that guy she’d come in with. Wasn’t anything he’d done, he just happened to be there,” Francine continued. Her eyes stayed fixed on the scene in front of them, her breathing hitching as the table started to wobble a bit. Only when a pair of NCR soldiers reached forward and held it still for Cass did Francine relax enough to continue. “She was pissed at you for taking her alcohol, so she came down here, screaming at the top of her lungs to get her another.”

       “We gave it to her just to shut her up,” James added, rubbing his eyes. “It was 4:00 in the morning and most sane people were finally to bed.”

       “She’s spent more money here than we’ve paid her, for both the beer and the liquor put together. It’s great for our pockets, sure, but we don’t need this kind of hell to deal with.” Francine sighed, leaning over the counter on her arm and propping up her chin with one hand. “But what do you do when your supplier is a party-drunk?”

       Arcade turned back to look at the infamous redhead, taking in her appearance with more attention to detail. The bags on her eyes had come to look like bruises and her entire face seemed both puffy and sunken at once. The red splotches he’d first noticed on her face a few weeks earlier were pale, but trailed down her neck and chest as well. She’d tied her hair back tight, but it still looked like a greasy mess. Then again, greasy hair wasn’t uncommon in the wasteland, so it didn’t exactly stand out.

       To the average patron, she might just seem like a wild-woman nearing the end of a bender. The only thing Arcade saw was a woman slowly killing herself. Possibly quickly killing herself, at the rate she seemed to be consuming alcohol.

       “Isn’t there anything you can do to…” Arcade reached around in the air, trying to find the words, “I don’t know, at least hamper her intake?”

       “Deliberately?” James asked, eyes wide. “She’d slaughter us if she found out. Haven’t you tried?”

       Arcade threw his arms up in defeat. “She refuses to heed my advice. It would seem she and her liver are filing for divorce.”

       Francine nodded. “She may be headstrong, but I think it’s time for an intervention. Or sales will go down, but I’d rather lose money than her.”

       Cass dropped backwards off the table, overbalancing, but was caught by what must have been the most massive ghoul Arcade had ever seen. _He’s gotta be at least as tall as me._ Despite the ghoul’s surly appearance, Arcade waded through the crowd towards them both. He pushed past the NCR boys that had been cheering her on and stuffing cash into her discarded jacket, walking straight up to her.

       “Cass.”

       She slapped him hard, aiming for his cheek but hitting him in the nose instead. It stung, but didn’t really hurt. “I don’t like you!” she slurred.

       The soldiers whooped and hollered their amusement around him.

       “Who are you,” the ghoul grunted, still holding her up with one arm.

       “I’m her doctor,” Arcade said with a frown.

       “No you’re not!” She tried to pull her arm free from the ghoul, but overbalanced the other way. He caught her again without even looking. “He takes my liquor away!”

       “Because you’re going to kill yourself with it!” Arcade shouted. His hands balled into fists, but a glare from the ghoul straightened his fingers quickly.

       “M’not!” Cass giggled. “M’fine! M’fine, see?” She pulled herself free again and held out both of her arms in triumph. Just as a sardonic grin was creeping onto her face, she toppled to the ground, unconscious.

       The ghoul made no move to catch her this time.

       “You’re her doctor?” he asked, turning back to him as though nothing had happened.

       Arcade nodded, eyes flicking between Cass on the floor and the ghoul in front of him. He noticed, to his horror, that the ghoul was, in fact, _taller_ than him.

       “You agree this isn’t healthy?”

       He nodded again, trying not to sound rude as he said, “obviously.”

       “You think it’ll kill her?”

       Again, Arcade nodded. “If her liver hasn’t already sent her cease and desist notices, it will soon. And then only because it’s going to stop functioning.”

       The ghoul nodded, then picked up Cass’s limp body and threw her over his shoulder. “Reasonable.” He carried her towards the stairs.

       Francine ducked out from behind the bar to get the door to one of the rooms for them. “On the house,” she muttered, turning the key and shoving the door open. The ghoul said nothing as he shut the door behind him, locking them both out.

       Arcade raised a questioning eyebrow at Francine, who just shook her head and beckoned him down the hall after her.

       “New bodyguard,” she whispered, as though he might be able to hear them over the cacophony floating up from barroom below. “Hired him after somebody broke into the brewery and killed her two other boys. Didn’t steal anything, so we figure they were after her. But she was here when it happened.”

       Her words made his blood run cold.

       “Is there somewhere we can talk?” Arcade asked, looking around. He didn’t want to talk about anything, not the Legion, not Cass, not any of it, out in the open air of a bar.

       Francine stopped, watching him carefully, then nodded. “Wait here.” She clomped down the stairs, presumably to tell James what she was up to. A minute later she was back, pulling him up another set of stairs at the back of the building to the suite she shared with her brother and the Wrangler’s employees. It was fairly bare-bones, with a completely empty foyer leading into a completely empty common area, but it served its purpose.

       “We can use the boys’ room,” she said, opening one of the doors and leading Arcade inside. The room had several beds and wardrobes lined up along the walls, but at the front of the room was a small sitting area. She seated herself at the bar small bar along the wall as he shut the door behind them. “Getcha’ a drink?” she asked, reached for a bottle of whiskey, but changed her mind halfway through. “On the house.”

       “I don’t know that I want to see alcohol again,” Arcade said, his voice grim. He sank into the stiff green couch, remembering how tired and thirsty he was. She tossed him a bottle of water.

       “Try that,” she said with a grin, “it’s got the lowest alcohol content out of anything we offer.”

       “Well that puts it under 40% at least.” Arcade laughed, then drained half the bottle at once.

       “You ok?” she asked, leaning back on her elbows against the bar. “You seem a little rough around the edges.”

       Arcade shook his head, dropping back onto the couch and rubbing his eyes with his palms. Another bottle landed on the couch beside him. “Right now ‘ok’ seems about the last thing I would think of. Try something more like despondent, or perhaps cowering in the face of adversity.” He lowered his hands from his eyes, sighing. “And I have no idea what I can and can’t tell you.”

       Francine nodded slowly. “Go on.”

       “I have it on good authority that the fight is going to come here before it goes to the Dam,” Arcade said, not wanting to give away his source.

       Francine shrugged. “We’ve all heard the rumor, one time or another. Just because it’s popular again doesn’t–”

       “It’s not a rumor this time. It’s really happening.” He leaned forward, talking faster as he continued. “They’re coming in two waves and they want to surprise Freeside with it. Haven’t you noticed that half of the thugs are gone? They’re all congregating together North of the city getting ready for the battle, and they’re not on our side.”

       “This has to do with your boyfriend, doesn’t it,” Francine asked, her brow furrowed.

       Arcade blinked. “My what?”

       “Your boyfriend?” Francine waited for him to respond, then rolled her eyes. “Everyone knows you’ve got some NCR boyfriend now, Gannon. We’ve seen you two having dinner and drinks here together, hanging around outside. Rumor had it you two were shacked up down in Novac for the last week.”

       Arcade blushed violently, remembering he’d lied to her about where he was going.

       “Don’t get all upset about it,” she said, laughing. “Privacy’s hard to come by. So this guy knows the scoop about the Legion’s attack plans, is that it? Then why haven’t they done anything to protect the city? And what about that courier girl? Doesn’t she have control of House’s securitrons now? Those should keep most things out.”

       He shook his head, draining the end of his first bottle of water and opening the second. “They don’t want to make anyone panic,” he said, trying to come up with something plausible. If everyone thought Vulpes was NCR? That was about the best it was going to get. “They don’t know when it’ll happen, just that it’s soon. And isn’t Six missing again?”

       “True…”

       Arcade cracked his neck, his eyes widening as almost every vertebra popped into place. He took another long drink to fill the silence. “I need to find her.”

       “What, so you can tell her to be ready with the securitrons? They’ll defend the city anyway, won’t they?”

       He wasn’t sure whether or not he’d passed the point he should have stopped talking or not yet. Hesitating before he spoke, he ran his hand through his hair, resting it on the back of his head. “Someone told me something… something that concerned me about her,” he said carefully. “And I need to talk to her about it. Find out if it’s true or just the usual worthless gossip.”

       She watched him carefully, but didn’t push. “I’ve heard some pretty bad rumors about her myself,” she admitted. She bit her lip, glancing at the door. “Some strange coincidences, that sort of thing.” As she spoke, she ran her hand back and forth in front of her throat, signaling for him to stop his line of talk. “But that’s just what it is. Coincidence. She’s a good kid.”

       “That’s why I want to talk to her,” Arcade said, trying to make his tone a little brighter, though he wasn’t entirely sure what was going on. “I want to make sure she hears about them from a friend, rather than anyone else.”

       Francine nodded. “More important tonight is what the hell are we going to do with Cassidy?”

       “Or the big guy?” Arcade asked, remembering the ghoul.

       “Nah, he’s no problem, not unless she wants him to be.” Francine got up and moved to sit by Arcade in one of the plush chairs by the couch. “I guess she’s got some contract with him. He protects her until she sells the contract, pretty much like a slave if you ask me, and she can basically ask him to do anything she wants. She says his name is Charon, but he won’t answer you if you talk usually. Just directs you to her instead.”

       “Where did she even find him?” Arcade asked. He shook his head, stretching his legs out in front of him. The movement made one of the vertebrae in his spine crunch unexpectedly. He gasped, but settled back into the couch more comfortably.

       Francine shrugged. “Don’t know. She says he’s been everywhere – East Coast, West Coast, North, South, you name it. Guess he worked out in DC for a while til his mistress died in some radiation accident, sold his contract to a traveler to whom Cassidy made one of her unrefusable offers of booze and sex.” She sighed, squinting as she tried to remember. “Might have been the guy she was with the day you left, actually. Don’t know. We were too busy dealing with her need for booze.”

       “I’ll deal with her later,” Arcade mumbled through a yawn. “First I want to get some sleep. I traveled a long way today. Then tomorrow… I have some other things to deal with.”

       Quietly, Francine crossed the room and pulled a pad of paper and a pencil out of one of the bottom drawer of a wardrobe. Not bothering to sit down, she scribbled out a quick note, tore it off, and stuffed both items back into the drawer. The note she folded up into a tiny square, then handed it off to Arcade. “Well, that room is always open to you guys. Want me to have James send some dinner up to you?”

       Arcade held the note firmly in his fist in his pocket. “That’d be great, thanks.”

       “Well!” Francine smiled broadly as she opened the door. “This has been fun, we should talk more often. We’re trying to find some more furniture for the rooms out here, so maybe next time we won’t have to steal the boys’ room.” Arcade followed her out, still holding onto the second bottle of water she’d given him. He wanted to drink it dry, but didn’t dare either let go of the note or take it out of his pocket.

       “I’d like that,” he said, grinning too, hoping it didn’t seem too fake. The sentiment was genuine, anyway. “It’s not often I get to talk to either you or James outside the bar.”

       As they passed by the door, he noticed a tiny camera in the corner of the room. He didn’t recall the Wrangler having an in-house security system before.

       When he reached the room that Six and her most frequent companions shared, he glanced around looking for another. To his relief, he didn’t see one. He held the note close to his face to read anyway, taking off his glasses.

 

> I know what you’re talking about.  
>  She’s got ears here, be careful. Bought some of the guards, don’t know who.  
>  Figure attack on Cassidy deliberate and organized.  
>  Veronica and Raul presumed dead. Boone missing, possibly dead.  
>  Asking weird questions around town, tried to buy King; refused. Pace found dead soon after.  
>  BE CAREFUL. Shred and flush.

       He read the note twice, just to be sure he’d read it right the first time. _How can a seventeen-year-old girl be responsible for this?_ The paper felt like fire in his hands.

       A knock on the door made him jump, and he quickly shoved the note into his pocket. “Yes?”

       “Got some food for ya, Gannon.” James' voice was muffled through the door.

       Arcade tripped on his feet as he ran over to the door, catching himself on the doorframe and yanking it open. “Thanks,” he said with a grin, his fist still clenched tight around the note in his pocket.

       “Uh… you alright, Gannon?” James asked, glancing up and down at him. Arcade was still leaning on the door frame, grinning stupidly, unmoving.

       “What? Oh right, I’m fine thanks,” he said, taking the offered plate.

       “She told me to bring you this too,” James continued, holding out a bottle of water with his other hand.

       Arcade smiled, then frowned, then turned and put the plate down on the dresser before taking the bottle from him. His fist still stayed firmly clenched in his pocket; his knuckles were beginning to ache but he pretended not to care. Standing up straight, Arcade smiled again. “Thanks.”

       James shook his head clear. “Get some sleep, Gannon,” he said, trying not to laugh. “I’ll put it on your tab, you can pay in the morning. We know you’ll pay up.”

       “Oh, no! It’s fine! I’ll just–”

       “Goodnight, Gannon,” James laughed, shutting the door.

       Arcade continued to smile at the empty doorframe, his heart racing. He pulled the note back out of his pocket, now damp from his sweating palm, and tore it into several tiny pieces. Jogging across the room to the toilet, he couldn’t move fast enough. The second the papers flopped into the water in the bowl, he flushed it, then again for good measure.

_Ronnie and Raul? Dead?_

       It couldn’t be true. Why would they matter? The Brotherhood wasn’t enough of a threat in the West for the Legion to worry about. And why kill one random ghoul with a knack for fixing things? The pair were fast friends and tech buddies, sure, and between the two of them there wasn’t a broken thing that couldn’t be fixed. But lots of people could fix things.

       What scared him just as much was the idea that Six was buying people’s ears, much the same way Vulpes had.

       Arcade slid down along the wall to sit on the floor. What to do about him now? Surely he’d know he was back in Freeside, one way or another. He groaned, resting his head on his hands between his knees, realizing he’d basically told Francine everything. Had he betrayed him? Vulpes had told him about Six’s plans in confidence. But then, he’d also said he didn’t expect Arcade to betray his friends, and wouldn’t stop him either.

       His chest ached, wondering how the younger man would react. The fact that he would probably understand just made it feel worse.

       Maybe coming back really had been a mistake, he decided. Maybe Rotface had the right idea – that he should go back to Novac and pretend he never even came to Freeside in the first place.

       Frustrated, he slammed his head back into the wall, then immediately regretted it as a dull headache seeped into his skull. There was just too much going on and too much to sort out for one day.

       He picked at his meal out in the main room, knowing that he needed the nourishment after traversing the open desert all afternoon, but he didn’t really want to eat. It wasn’t even iguana bits, rather a full bowl of stew – and it didn’t look like squirrel stew either – but it took a tremendous effort to bring each spoonful to his mouth. He pushed around the bits of vegetable in the bowl, then ate one begrudgingly. A memory of Daisy scolding him for not eating enough popped into his mind, bringing a half smile to his face.

       Daisy was going to be angry with him for leaving so abruptly again, but he was fairly certain she’d understand too. With luck, it wouldn’t be the last time she heard from him.


	20. Chapter 20

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Super short chapter, but it doesn't make sense tacked onto anything. So, here we are.
> 
> Again, almost entirely dialogue...

       Arcade opened his eyes, but the room was dark. For a moment he was confused, wondering how it could be pitch black in his room, but then he remembered – this wasn’t his room, it was the room at the Wrangler. The bar downstairs was quiet. No light shone in under the door either, meaning it must still be nighttime. He grinned lazily and snuggled back into the sheets.

       Only, he wasn’t the only one under them.

       He jumped, but a gentle hand caught his wrist; the grip was familiar. Arcade breathed in deep through his nose, calming down as he recognized the scents of leather and smoke.

       “What are you doing here?” Arcade asked, relaxing again. He didn’t bother to turn on the light, in case it was a dream. Yawning and stretching, he pressed the side of his face back down into the pillow.

       “I suppose I could ask you the same.”

       “You know I couldn’t let anything happen to them,” Arcade said, his voice muffled by sleep. “I had to come here.”

       “Do you know what you plan to do?”

       He shook his head. “Not really. Gonna talk to her.” He yawned again, his eyes squeezing shut so hard they watered.

       “She’ll try to kill you.”

       “Probably.” Arcade shrugged, his movements slow and languid. “I’ll try not to die.”

       A huffed laugh. “I’d like that very much. Do try hard for me?”

       Arcade’s grin spread wide across his face. He pulled the sheets up over his shoulders and tight to his chest. “Ok. But only because you ask so nicely.”

       “You’ve made my job much harder, you know.”

       “I’m sort of sorry.” He tried to speak through a yawn, not bothering to keep his eyes open in the darkness anymore; he couldn’t see a thing anyway. “I can’t let them die though.”

       “I could transport your friends to safehouses.”

       “I’m a doctor,” Arcade said, his voice trailing off and starting to mumble. “Not good at lettin’ _anyone_ die.”

       “You can’t save this city.”

       Arcade shrugged, lacking the energy to laugh though he thought about it. “I can try. Least then I’m doing somethin’ stead of runnin’ way.”

       “I wish you’d run. Join me. I could keep you and your friends safe when we take the city. You could live free from fear and harm as Legion citizens.”

       “Tempting…” Arcade mumbled, his mouth stuck half-open against the pillow.

       “Think about it.”

       “Ok.” Arcade’s thoughts drifted as he moved closer to the warm body beside him, too exhausted to think beyond the want of comfort. The man didn’t move away, but didn’t immediately move closer either. Arcade grinned when he felt an arm snake around his waist. Contented and drained of all energy, he let the softness of the bed and the man’s familiar smell surround him, and fell into a dreamless sleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ...but also some fluff. =]


	21. Chapter 21

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Uh... I have no excuses. If you've stuck around, bless you, and thank you. If you're new? I'll try not to suck at updating as badly as I have in the past. I honestly only have this story set up to have three more chapters, but it's entirely possible I'll expand it. At present, the end feels a bit too soon in the story. But for now, have some more.

The sheets felt too hot and the air was too close in the small rented room. That meant it was, most likely, morning. Possibly early afternoon. The thin sheen of sweat on his skin made the sheets stick to him. Despite his distaste for the Lucky 38, he found himself aching for its showers. Even in their deteriorated state, they were better than sponge-baths in his tent at the Old Mormon Fort – even if the King did give the Followers water for free. He remembered then that his apartment in Novac had a shower as well, and the memory of the last time he’d been there made him flush.

But there were other things to worry about than his want of a shower. He was certain of only one aspect of his plan – the next step would be to find Six.

That brought up a much more difficult question, however. How? Asking around might not be the best plan of action, not if he wanted to find her without her finding him first. Even if he didn’t believe the girl wanted him dead, she would answer more questions and with more honesty if he surprised her. And his list of questions seemed unending.

Where were Veronica and Raul? Were they really dead? And what about Boone, him too? Why supply Cass with enough Booze to swim in when the woman was an avid alcoholic? Why hadn’t she spent any time or effort debunking any of these rumors? The same questions kept playing over in his mind, like an old horror film looping the same few seconds of a holotape until someone smacked the projector.

And, on top of it all, why was she, supposedly, working with Caesar? Though, apparently even that was a lie now too, if she was trying to take the city for herself.

It didn’t make any sense. _None of it_ made any sense. Why pretend to work for Caesar only to turn away from him at the last minute? Maybe she’d seen the error of her ways, sure, but to then take the city by force when she practically owned it already? With control of the securitrons she ran what qualified as New Vegas’ only military. But then again, the NCR wasn’t likely to move out without a fight – even if it was suicidal. They were good at that, not giving up even when it was the only sane thing to do. And how was she convincing them that she wasn’t working for Caesar, for that matter?

Maybe she’d been playing this game better than he’d given her credit for. Still, sitting around and thinking about all these questions wasn’t going to get him any answers.

While walking up to the courier’s front door didn’t seem like the greatest idea, it was by far the easiest. There weren’t exactly many other places to look, however. It was possible she might be at the Tops. While she’d told Arcade and Veronica that she hated the place for the memory of Benny, Cass had told him once in a drunken stupor that Six secretly loved the place anyway. And that the memory of shooting Benny just as he’d shot her was something that both delighted in and abhorred.

He thought briefly about asking Cass if she’d seen or heard of the courier’s whereabouts, but she was likely either gone or still passed out from her binge the night before. And the sight of that ghoul terrified him. Arcade had never seen anyone taller than himself, and the fact that this ghoul was obviously so, _and_ had survived potentially over 200 years? Not someone to meddle with, for certain. And if he had spent even a significant portion of those years working as a bodyguard? An even stronger deterrence to keep him from even approaching the woman.

Deciding with a grumble that there was no reason to delay any longer, Arcade stood and stretched. He frowned when he cracked his neck to one side but couldn’t get the other to pop; it left him feeling unbalanced, an unsettling feeling that would linger until he was able to snap the joints back into submission. _As if there aren’t already enough ominous omens lately._ He dressed quickly and headed down the stairs, laughing to himself as he skipped the thirteenth step just for good measure.

Francine only nodded a greeting as he passed by the bar on his way out. He paused with his hand on the door, then fished out a handful of caps from his pocket and set them on the counter in front of her – to settle out whatever he had for a tab. “Just in case,” he said, his quiet voice still sounding too loud in the otherwise silent room.

She nodded, sweeping the caps into the drawer of the register without counting them. “Stay safe,” she said, returning to paperwork she had strewn across the bar. _Probably order forms._

He nodded, unaccustomed to this side of her. Most of the time she hid her laughter behind a scowl only to keep her patrons from walking all over her. Only a few knew her as both the brains _and_ the more entertaining of the twins.

Just as he was about to reach the door again, her voice stopped him.

“Who is he?” she asked, sounding more curious than concerned.

“Who?” Arcade asked, though it was obvious who she was referring to.

She raised an eyebrow at him in response. “Everybody seems to know who he is when you describe him, but no one knows his name, where he’s from, or what he does. We guessed he's NCR because we don't have any better ideas. He’s everywhere, no one knows who he is, and he didn’t even stop earlier to ask if you were here. Just went straight up to your room like it was his.”

Arcade huffed a tiny laugh. _So it wasn’t a dream._ “He’s… an acquaintance of mine?”

“An acquaintance that shares your bed?” She dropped her pencil and leaned over the counter on her elbows. “That’s a pretty serious acquaintanceship.” Francine sighed, rubbing her eyes with her palms. “Look, I just want to know if I should trust him or not. I know he’s got at least three names, who cares, everybody around here’s got a few. But I don’t want him coming in here if he’s going to be a problem.”

“He’s not,” Arcade said quickly, with such conviction even he was shocked. “He’s… He’ll… I don’t know. But I trust him. Even when I don’t want to.”

Francine nodded. “That’s good enough for me.”

 

* * *

  

The crunching of gravel and dirt under tires was all too quickly becoming part of the unending background noise of Freeside, much faster than Arcade was comfortable with – even the most affable of Freeside’s residents were visibly uncomfortable whenever one whirred by. Arcade lingered in a shadow against the outer wall of the Wrangler while he decided what to do.

This was as far as his planning had gone. He’d returned to Freeside. While the idea of even approaching the Strip was less than palatable, it did seem the most logical place to look for Six. For all he knew, she’d be locked up in her tower and see him coming. _Wonderful._

Still, the gate guards gave him no grief when he approached and then stepped through into the Strip. Nor did they bother to approach him when he moved towards the doors to the UnLucky 38. It turned out to be most likely due to the fact that they were locked, and the newly installed terminal beside them refused to let him in.

“Sorry, but I can’t let you in. Miss Six has modified my programming to only accept certain commands from her! Isn’t that smart? Otherwise, I would have to just let you walk right inside, and that probably wouldn’t be very good,” it said in an all too chipper tone, smiling exuberantly at him from the flickering monitor. “Is there anything else I can do for you?”

Arcade frowned, crossing his arms. “I don’t know. _Is_ there anything else you can do for me?”

“Well,” the terminal started, his ‘face’ interrupted by static and scrolling down the screen a few times, “Miss Six hasn’t expressly stated for me to inform her of anyone’s whereabouts, or to alert her when anyone attempts to go in when she isn’t here. Which means I don’t have to tell her if you don’t want me to! I’m pretty sure that’s not what she intended for me to do, but since she hasn’t requested it, you get first dibs!”

“ _DON’T TELL HER_ ,” Arcade whisper-shouted gleefully. “Please, don’t tell her I’m here, or where I’m going.”

“Well I can’t tell her that, since I don’t know where that is,” the monitor continued with an amused tone. “But if you’re trying to avoid her, you should steer clear of the securitrons inside the casinos. They’ve been alerted to malfunction the moment they see you, and will spontaneously explode when you approach them!”

_Oh._ “…explode?”

“I should probably be less helpful, but I just can’t stop myself.” The voice behind the grinning screen laughed. “I think I’m going to run a diagnostic now, just to be sure I can’t keep helping you so much. Sorry for the inconvenience!”

“…no problem.”

_Fuck._

That meant no touring of the casinos. The more he thought about it though, the less likely it seemed she would be in any of them. The only reason she might set foot in dens of depravity known as the Ultra Lux and the Gomorrah would be to fill them with kindling, and they were much more likely to spontaneously combust from the evils within them than Six would step inside them willingly – not even for that most noble purpose. Her hate for them was only tempered into tolerance by their ability to generate a relatively stable economy for the Strip. With the loss of even one of them, the whole area would soon become nothing but a once-loved destination for wealthy men and women to find themselves quickly bereft of their riches. The until-then carefully managed balance between the casinos would be irrevocably broken. New Vegas could be renamed Impecunia.

Having knocked three of the four casinos off his list in one shot, and banking on the thought she wouldn’t bother with the Tops either, there was little else to search on the Strip. She’d never set foot in Vault 21 for fear that she might collapse into a panic attack at the sight of a stray finger pointing in her direction and be unable to climb her way out. That only left the NCR Embassy, and if rumors were flying that she had sided with the Legion she wouldn’t exactly linger around there very long. And if he were to check the Embassy himself, it would require him to enter it. _Hah. Nope._

He retreated off the Strip with as little fuss as he’d come.

Unfortunately, that left few places for him to check. He had null-point-zip interest in checking in at the ( _Legion_ ) Fort, though it was possible she’d gone to visit her ol’ buddy Caesar. Beyond that, he could only seem to think to ask around Freeside if anyone knew what she was up to. The Kings had shut up pretty tight since the securitrons had started rolling around; maybe it was one of them that took out Pacer. It didn’t seem unlikely. And with the Kings closing their doors, Mick & Ralph’s wouldn’t be opening theirs very wide either. Still, if he was going to warn them to get out of town, there was no reason to make separate visits for the two conversations.

Arcade took the back way around to get to their shop. It wasn’t exactly out of the way, and Followers weren’t often jumped even in the worst parts of town. _Hinder not the physician’s hand_ , he thought bitterly, _though it heals you all the same._ What frightened him most as he made his way through the cluttered back streets and ruins of the Vegas That Was, was the absence of people. Even the junkies kept quiet, cloistered away in the upper floors or inside rusted-out cars. The fires in the squatters’ yards had gone dark as well. For once, he wouldn’t have minded being bothered by ‘fabulous’ Santiago, but he wasn’t to be found either.

Of course, Dixon had no qualms about waiting in his usual place for customers.

“Gotta make a living somehow, and I make a killing at this one,” Dixon said with a grin, revealing his deep-stained broken teeth.

“Fuck off,” Arcade muttered, forgoing all eloquence as he pushed the drug-peddler out of his way.

“Hey! I don’t make them buy my goods, it’s anyone’s choice!” Dixon shouted with a cackle. Arcade just balled his hands into fists and pushed into the shop, reminding himself not to slam the door behind him.

“Arcade! Welcome back to Freeside. How was your trip?” Ralph smiled up at him from his chair behind the desk. He was tinkering with a radio, one hand holding it steady on his lap and the other stuffed rather rudely inside it with some tool or another poking out partway.

“Uh…” Arcade grimaced. “Weird. Listen, you know that vacation you’re always talking about? Going out to the NCR again, visiting friends?”

“Yeah.” Ralph gave him an inquisitive glance, still tinkering with the radio.

“Why don’t you take it now?” Arcade started, the rest all falling out in a rush. “I’m sure you and Mick could use a break from this. Bring Sam with you, show him how different it can be somewhere West of here. You should bring your valuables with you, just in case you decide to stay longer than you intend to. Maybe a couple of months. Or years. Or you could even settle down out there. It’s nice this time of year, I guess.”

Ralph sighed, putting down his work and leaning forward in his chair. He folded his hands together and rested his elbows on his knees. “It’s really that bad then, isn’t it?”

Arcade turned away.

“Listen,” Ralph said quietly. “We really appreciate what you’ve been doing. It wasn’t too hard to figure you’ve been doing secret work for the Embassy. It’s good of you stand up and try to do something when so few others will.”

Something soured in Arcade’s gut at the undeserved praise. He’s tucked tail and ran just like everyone else had – he’d just gone a little farther than most. Unlike most of Freeside’s residents, he’d had somewhere to go to.

Ralph continued when Arcade didn’t respond. “To tell you the truth, we’ve been thinking about leaving already. If it was just us? Just Mick and me? Hell, we’ve lived through it all before. But with Sam to consider…” He sighed, a broken sound that made Arcade feel even more ill. “It’s not worth the fight. You really think they’re going to take the city?”

“I do.” Arcade’s voice was dry and hoarse. He tried not to cough as bile splashed up his throat. Only the sound of wheels scraping on the dirty floor made him turn back around.

Ralph’s dejected eyes as he looked around the store made him wish he hadn’t. “Then I guess it’s finally time to pack up. Mick’s buddies with one of the brahmin farmers outside town. Maybe we can buy one to pull our old cart if we get him to realize his stock’s likely going to get killed off soon anyway.”

Arcade nodded numbly, not finding words anywhere in his body to respond with.

Ralph put a hand on his shoulder. “Thank you. You’ve been a good friend.” He grinned, moving his hand to lightly punch him on the arm. “Who’re you gonna buy your clothes from now?”

The thought, though miserable, made him laugh. He looked away, grinning blithely. “Maybe I’ll ask around up at Jacobstown.” They both laughed, but he could tell neither of their hearts were truly in it. Freeside wouldn’t be the same without the shop, and its owners likely wouldn’t be the same without it. But the alternatives were somehow even less pleasant. So it was with forced apathy that they shook hands to part ways.

“Is Mick in?” Arcade asked suddenly, his hand already on the door.

Ralph nodded. “Sure. Why?”

“I need to buy a gun. Something small, 9mm. Doesn’t need to do much, just needs to be there.” Arcade headed for the back of the store, following Ralph as the man laughed.

“What, you want it for its aesthetic value?”

It sounded somewhat absurd as Arcade thought about it. “Essentially.”

Ralph picked one up off the counter at the back of the room, not bothering to call down Mick. “Consider it yours. They won’t be worth bringing with us anyway.”

The gun felt cold and heavy in his hands, bringing the bile back up his throat for a second try as he thought about what he intended to do with it. “Thanks…” He grimaced, finally allowing his eyes to meet Ralph’s. “Listen… I’ll see you soon, alright? Once the NCR blows them out of town and things return to normal.”

Ralph smiled a little, but it didn’t reach his eyes. “I’ll leave the sign out front. Watch the store for me, will you? I don’t want Dixon moving in just because we’re taking a vacation.”

Arcade scoffed bitterly. “You got it. With luck, maybe the Legion will get to him before we have to worry about it.”

When he stepped back outside, he was pleased to see that Dixon had seen fit to locate himself somewhere else for the moment. If the man had been out there grinning at him again lie before, he’d have been tempted to shoot him, which would have been made easier by his sudden possession of a real gun.

The gun.

_“Damnit!”_ Arcade swore, stomping one of his feet down against the curb. He’d completely forgotten to ask about Six, and he didn’t want to stick his head back in the door with yet another ‘one more thing.’

A raspy voice drifted down the street towards him from near the gate. “Trouble?”

Another securitron zoomed by on the main street as Arcade turned his attention to Rotface. “Kind of. I just forgot to do something. I was going to ask the guys something while I was in there, but it’d be… awkward… to go back in now.”

“I got the knowledge if you’ve got the caps,” Rotface reminded him.

The casual flip of a cap from his pocket into the ghoul’s waiting hands was nearly automated at this point; he always offered up a cap or two for him, even if he didn’t necessarily care to hear what the ghoul had to say. He approached the ghoul slowly, casually sitting down beside him and leaning up against the wall of the shop. “You know anything about what the Courier is up to these days?”

“Oh,” Rotface dragged the sound out, evidently intrigued. “You don’t ask smart questions. It’s a good thing you’re a doctor.”

“Humor me?” Arcade reached for his pocket, but the ghoul held up a hand to stop him. “I know. But that’s not really your question, is it?”

Arcade shook his head. He picked at the dirt under his thumbnail, resting his head back against the wall and staring off into nothing in particular. “I want to know where she is. I want to talk with her.”

“You don’t have smart ideas, either,” Rotface said, shaking his head. “But I suppose if I don’t tell you, someone else will.”

“You don’t have to tell me.” In truth, Arcade probably shouldn’t have asked one of Vulpes’ informants, though if he really had been visited by him the night before – Arcade suppressed a shiver at the thoughts that conjured up – the man probably already knew what Arcade intended to do anyway. “But I think the fox has a pretty good idea of what the sheep is up to anyway.”

Rotface shrugged. “It’s not my place to get involved in nature. But, if I were you, I’d head up North to the old farm house. Might be some chickens in the old coop. That fox might be every bit as interested in munching on a few of them as he is in stalking the sheep.”

_Of course. The fiends in red._ He felt like an idiot the moment he heard it. Of course she would be with her militia. Where else should she be? But then, how in the Wastes would he get near her?

“You think the sheep should be worried about the chickens trying to peck at him?” Arcade asked, holding out another cap.

“One can never be too careful.” Rotface took the cap and dropped it into his pocket with the other one, clinking gently. “But I bet the wolf is a lot more interested in the sheep than the hens are. They’d probably do whatever she says to avoid an unfortunate end.”

“Thanks, friend.”

“Any time, smoothskin. I’ve always got more.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Comments always appreciated! I wouldn't mind an opinion on how this sounds, considering I just picked up in the middle of a chapter a good eight months after I started it.


	22. Chapter 22

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My gods, another chapter already? What is this world coming to?!? 
> 
> Long chapter. 5203 words. Go me. Happy Valentine's day.

The Horowitz Farmstead. There wasn’t a sign out front or anything to tell you that’s what it was called, the locals just all knew the name. Not that knowing the name was necessary, it was just something you’d hear one day when figuring out directions away from New Vegas. If you went South, you went passed the roller coaster in Primm, and headed out West between two giant metal men (because going East was just a bad idea). If you went North, you either went North-East up into the Canyons, or you went North-West up passed the Horowitz Farmstead and Jacobstown. It wasn’t much to know, but newcomers often didn’t know it.

There wasn’t much to the place when Arcade had last seen it, but he didn’t often have a reason to go that way either. Once he’d been called up to a science lab set up by Jacobstown’s doctor, but it had been years earlier and he hadn’t been up there since. Nothing had really changed. The NCR didn’t use the road North as a supply line, only pulling in troops and supplies from Shady Sands. It had left a gap in their already ignorant gaze, and it seemed Six was just fine with filling that void with her own personal army.

Which, for all intents and purposes, really _was_ just a bunch of Fiends wearing red to scare people.

He mulled over Vulpes’ decision as he approached the place his rather simple little 9mm resting uncomfortably against his side. To tell his superiors at the NCR Embassy that they weren’t a threat was a lie that could cost them the war. Sure, Arcade wasn’t exactly fond of the NCR himself, maybe it had something to do with their genocidal vendetta against the Enclave remnants, but they were better than the Legion. Of course there had been moments in his life that he’d questioned the morality and ethics behind the idea of ‘freedom at all costs,’ but he never wanted to see the other option brought into his life.

His boots crunched across the sand as he left the main road, walking towards the main building with a determined stride. Arcade knew he couldn’t ask Vulpes to give up everything he believed in for someone he barely knew, but he was tempted. Hell, he _had_ asked – more than once, even. And been angry when asked the same. _But it’s different… no. No it’s not._

“Oi!” someone shouted, and Arcade jerked to a stop. “What are you doing out here?” The voice belonged to one of Six’s ‘Fiends,’ leaning against the outer wall of the barn.

“I’m here to see her.”

“See who?” the man toyed, his lips curling into a toothy grin.

Arcade rolled his eyes. “I’d wager there are few women here. I’d like to see the Courier. Six.”

The man laughed, running his fingers through tight, curly, black hair as he turned and looked into the barn. “You hear that? He wants to see _her!_ ” Laughter erupted from within, and several other pairs of boots began to crunch towards him.

But they all stopped at the sound of someone else, deeper in the building. “Boys, let the giant blond man through. I haven’t seen him in a while and I’d like to… to chat.”

More laughter. The man with the curly black hair took him by the arm and pulled him into the open barn to see Six standing in the middle, with five other armed men circled loosely around her. The 9mm on his hip felt even more useless. Seconds later, the man took it away from him anyway.

“No,” Six said, gesturing at him. “Leave it. What’s he going to do anyway? I’m his _friend_. Isn’t that right, Arcade?”

Arcade kept his jaw clamped tightly shut, lips pressed together thin. ‘Friend’ was hardly the term he would use to describe her anymore.

“Leave us,” she continued, gesturing her hands in a wide, fluttering wave. “I want to talk with him alone. Catch up. It’s been a while, and I hear you’ve got stories to tell.” After a moment’s hesitation, the group surrounding her stalked out. Men, and to Arcade’s surprise, women as well, jumped down from the floor above them too. The fact that he hadn’t even noticed them until then left him even more uneasy.

Six smiled, a forced gesture, with her hands folded neatly in front of her while they all walked out. She took a few steps past Arcade, watching everyone move into the second of the two buildings before turning back to face him, evidently satisfied. “So! You and Vulpes, eh?” she asked. A giggle caught in her cheeks, but she stifled most of it. “ _Dog-head._ He hates it when I call him that, you know. It’s why I do it. I like to annoy him. It’s fun.” She toyed with the golden Mark of Caesar that still hung from her neck, marking her as poison to anyone that would touch her. “Don’t you think?”

“I wouldn’t know,” Arcade said bitterly. “It’s not a habit I’ve tried to form.”

“Shame.” She dropped the Mark back into her shirt. “You really ought’a try it sometime.”

Arcade wanted to reach out and shake her, stopping himself with his arms already out in front of him. “Do you have any idea what you’re getting yourself into?”

“Of course I do,” Six said with a laugh, crossing her arms and shifting her weight onto one leg, leaving her hip jutting out at an odd angle. It somehow made her look broken, like two boxes stacked haphazardly and ready to topple over. “I want what I want, and Caesar’s gonna give it to me. I scratch his back,” she held up a hand, fingers splayed and curled into claws, cocking her head to the side, “and he scratch mine.”

The absurdity of it all made him burst into laughter. “Oh yes, because Caesar’s known for his fairness and good-hearted nature. Especially towards women. Everybody knows that – good thinking.”

“I may as well be Princess Caesar,” Six scoffed, crossing her arms again, sighing longingly. “I can already taste it.”

“Oh for the love of – _Princess Caesar?_ ” She had to be delusional. “You’re going to destroy the city!”

“ _Then let it burn!_ ” Six shouted, her arms dropping back to her sides, teeth bared. “Then let it all burn down and we can build it up again. Better, bigger, new like the rest of Caesar’s territory. At least he takes charge of the places he takes! You know what the NCR wanted me to do? Kill him. They thought that by killing him they could kill the Legion. But all that does is put that dumbass Legate in charge, and nobody fucking likes him for a reason. All it would do is make the Legion worse. It’s not cutting off the snake’s head, it’s ripping out it’s tongue!”

Keeping his voice calm and steady, Arcade asked, “and what, pray tell, will your new role as ‘princess’ do to help that?”

“The Legion will fall to _me_ when he dies. _If_ he dies. Who knows, maybe Mars is real and he’ll burn down Vegas tomorrow anyway.” Six turned away from him, leaving him the perfect opportunity to end her insanity right there – he had no qualms with putting down a sick dog when it wasn’t looking. ‘Do no harm’ didn’t quite apply when it was the best of all possible outcomes. But he wanted to know more.

Even so, he couldn’t think of what to ask. He didn’t honestly care how the pair of them had come to this arrangement, or why. It didn’t matter. All that mattered was that she really was going to do it.

“So why the faux-legion, then? Why take the city from Caesar?”

Six didn’t even do him the honor of appearing surprised. “Because I want it. And I want to be ready to take it if I have to. I’ll either take it from him after his army is exhausted, or I’ll take it before him and prove my ability once and for all.” She turned back to face him again. “It doesn’t really matter which way it happens. It’ll be mine either way. He’ll have Flagstaff, and I’ll have Vegas. Our own thrones, out of each other’s way.”

So Vulpes hadn’t lied at all. He felt sick all over. Vulpes hadn’t lied once to him, and Arcade had done nothing but shout and doubt and push him away. _Later._

“Well?” Six asked expectantly, leaning forward with inquiring eyes.

“Hm?” Had he missed a question?

“Are you going to help me? You always do,” she said with a laugh. “You’re too sweet for your own good.”

“Oh.” Arcade smiled sadly, shaking his head. “Not this time.”

“Oh… then I take it you’re not here just to catch up. You’re probably still a bit sore about the whole slave thing.” She shifted her weight back and forth with a wiggle. “It wasn’t very nice, I guess. But at least I didn’t try to kill you.”

It hit him again, and just like every other time he hated the idea of it. “Did you really kill Ronnie? And Raul? Boone?” he asked quietly.

Six paused, putting her hands on her hips and watching him with an amused expression, one brow raised high above the other. “Do you really wanna know?”

He didn’t answer.

“None of our friends would have let me do this. They’re all too narrow minded, they can’t dream big, they don’t dare to. Cass wouldn’t have let me do half the things I’ve needed to, so I distracted her. If she’s drunk she’s not paying attention to ‘stupid little Six.’ Ronnie was getting too close to finding out about my plan to deal with you, so I got rid of her before it got out of hand. Sent Raul with her just because it was easy. And Boone? You know him. He’s been off trying to find Carla’s family for months now.”

As much as he wanted to, he couldn’t quite believe her. Not anymore. She looked tiny in front of him, the top of her head not-quite reaching his chin. At this point he looked down on her in more ways than one.

“I had a plan, you know,” she continued, raising her eyebrows. “With giving you to him, I mean. Get him to name me his heir, then watch as he comes down with a tragic disease that even his precious new personal doctor can’t fix.” She clapper her hands together, smiling widely. “No more Caesar. Just me.”

“I have to get going now,” he said quietly. “I doubt I’ll be visiting you again.” His fingers wrapped slowly around the hilt of the gun at his side, slipping it out of its holster.

“What,” Six started with a laugh, “you going to kill me? You _do_ know it’s not loaded, don’t you? There’s not even a mag in it. Besides, I’m not exactly about to let you shoot me and walk out the door. Besides, if you killed me you’d never forgive yourself – you’re a doctor.”

He shook his head, sighing. Everything he’d planned was banking on this working, and luck seemed a rare commodity these days. The gun felt heavy in his hand, the cool, smooth metal so different from the textured rubber grip of his old plasma defender. His eyes slid from the gun, held loosely in front of him, to Six, just a few feet away. “I don’t think I have to.”

A long, slow breath out. In.

He snapped the weapon up in front of him, aiming it directly at Six’s temple where she still bore scars from Benny. “ _Sorry, Kid,_ ” he snarled, then pulled the trigger once, a second time, and then the wide-eyed Courier was twitching on the ground, curling her legs up against herself. Her own screams gurgled as she gritted her teeth, pushing her palms up against her ears to try and block out the rushing sound that was no doubt drowning out every other sound to her.

Panic attack: induced.

Without wasting a moment, he bolted out the open back of the barn, hearing shots firing behind him. This was the part where his plan _ended,_ however. He hadn’t planned on having to outrun so many men. As soon as he reached the road, he dashed across and dove down into the sandy ditch on the other side, running along it as hard as his aching body could handle. He wasn’t built for speed running, he was built for power armor.

Chancing a glance up over the road only earned him more shots firing in his direction, but he was nearing the ruins of North Vegas and soon he’d be able to hide behind a nice thick piece of concrete. Of course, the nearer he came to the edge of the city, the lower the road got, and the only thing keeping him from being shot was fading away.

Then a shot cracked out from ahead of him, sending him skittering to a comical flailing halt before he realized that they weren’t shooting at _him_. Another crack, and his eyes snapped to its source – a pair of red eyes glowing gently in a second story window. It was either a real NCR Ranger, or it was Vulpes, and right then he’d be happy to see either. He bolted towards the red glow and hoped for the best.

“That wasn’t your brightest move,” the man shouted down, pulling back the bolt on the sniper rifle he held and readying another shot. He fired it and another of Six’s men dropped.

“I had to know!” Arcade shouted up at him, his back pressed flat to a wall beneath the sniper. “Is that you up there?”

“No, I’m the Easter Brahmin,” Vulpes said sarcastically. “I’m not going to be able to get rid of all of them, and you need to get out of here.” Draping his rifle across his back, Vulpes dropped down to the ground floor in front of Arcade – making the poor doctor just about jump out of his already shaking skin. Vulpes grabbed his arm with one hand and pulled off his helmet with the other. “Follow me.”

He didn’t need telling twice.

Vulpes dashed between buildings, still holding his helmet in a white-knuckle grip, with Arcade nearly losing him at every turn. To Arcade’s surprise, they were pursued even as they neared the gates to Freeside – but Vulpes wasn’t takin him there. He skidded around a corner, dropped his helmet, and snatched up a piece of steel rebar from the ground. As fast as he could move, he jammed it under the edge of a manhole cover in the road and pried the thing open. “In,” Vulpes commanded, not even bothering to make sure Arcade complied. While Arcade scrambled down the old rusted ladder into the ground, Vulpes threw the rebar in the direction they had been running, sending it with a clatter flying across the ground. As soon as Arcade was down far enough, Vulpes followed, pulling the cover shut over him.

Arcade waited, unmoving, unable to see in the sudden dark. Vulpes didn’t move either, still standing on the ladder with his head just inches from the manhole cover. Above them they could hear muffled shouts, then one of the men stomped on the cover as he ran by. _“This way!”_ one of them shouted, then continued onward towards Freeside. No doubt he’d seen the discarded helmet and assumed that it had simply been dropped and then abandoned in favor of haste.

For a few minutes more, neither of them dared do so much as sniffle. “Think they’re gone?” Arcade asked when he heard Vulpes moving. He kept his voice to a whisper anyway.

“I believe so,” Vulpes said, pushing up on the cover. “Wait here.” He peeked around with it raised only a few inches, then moved it to the side and climbed back up, just far enough to reach out and grab his helmet. After placing it back on his head, he scuttled back down and dropped the cover back into place behind him. “Can you see at all?” he asked, making Arcade jump.

The absurdity of the question, at least when directed to him, made Arcade laugh. “Not at all. I can barely see in daylight. My glasses are horrible.” He heard a jostling fabric and metal beside him.

“Here.” Something round and metallic was placed into his hands. “I can see well enough in low light to get by without it. These tunnels aren’t entirely new to me anyway. The mask has infrared sight; it should help you.”

Gratefully, Arcade tried to put it on, but it crushed his glasses up into his eyes. Even less helpful, without them on he could see fine in the mask, only he couldn’t at all make out what he was seeing, as it was a fuzzy red blur. He swore quietly as he squinted, trying to tell what was what, but it was no use. “It’s not going to work for me. I can’t see without my glasses, and I can’t fit them _and_ my big head in there. You take it.” He swallowed hard as Vulpes fingers pressed unintentionally over his own.

“Then I’ll lead you.”

Arcade heard Vulpes put the helmet back on again and then a gentle hand gripped his arm. It worked its way under his, so that Arcades arm rested directly over Vulpes’ own from elbow to fingertip. He wondered whether or not Vulpes could see him blush with the mask on.

Wordlessly, Vulpes led him down disused tunnels, dried out but still less than pleasant smelling. The scurrying sound of little claws told him that there were creatures living beneath the streets, perhaps giant rats or molerats, maybe even a mantis or two, but they were too surprised by the intrusion to bother them. The sudden noises echoing through the tunnel made Arcade jump periodically in the perfect blackness, but the red glow that was Vulpes beside him was comforting enough that he didn’t remark on them.

“You know, I used to hate those masks,” Arcade said, lowering his voice quickly as the echo reverberated. “I’ve spent my life avoiding all things NCR. That’s part of why I came out here. They’ve spent the better part of the last forty years trying to exterminate every last Remnant they see.”

Vulpes still said nothing, but twisted his arm underneath Arcade’s so that he could twine their fingers together.

“The running killed my mother, in the end. My father’s death, constantly running to keep me alive, dealing with me growing up and being a typical teenager. The way they slowly picked off our friends like bottles on a fence,” Arcade muttered. He half-tripped over nothing, but caught himself. Vulpes squeezed his hand lightly. “As if a handful of middle-aged men and women in power armor could threaten them. We weren’t exactly setting out to rebuild the Enclave.” The word still felt heavy and foreign on his tongue from having spent so many years avoiding it.

“The NCR fears that which differs from it.” Vulpes’ quiet, metallic voice was hard to understand in the tunnel. _Maybe that’s why he hasn’t said anything._

Arcade had to stifle a laugh after he thought about Vulpes’ words. “The Legion doesn’t exactly do anything differently.”

“The Legion sets out to absorb that which is better than it; in the various tribes we’ve encountered, such traits are rare.”

“So what, if it’s better you sponge it up, if it’s trainable you steal it, and the rest are murdered or enslaved?” Arcade snapped. Vulpes stopped moving, causing Arcade to jerk to a stop beside him. He realized, then, that in the middle of a pitch-black tunnel he didn’t know his way around he should probably not be saying anything potentially insulting to his guide. “I’m sorry,” he added quietly. And he was. “I didn’t mean to say that to upset you.”

“I assumed.”

Arcade wished he could see Vulpes’ facial expressions, but even then he wasn’t sure if that would tell him anything or not. “You’re not saying much.”

“What is there to say?”

“It’s… it’s just hard to read you. Being in the dark makes it that much harder.” He laughed, nervously, grinning at where he assumed Vulpes’ face would be. “You’ve got a bit of an advantage here.”

A soft movement, a shift in the air beside him, suggested Vulpes was moving, but did little to explain what he was doing. Vulpes untangled their fingers, to Arcade’s dire disappointment, but then slid his hand up along the back of Arcade’s arm and onto his shoulder. Then they were pressed chest to chest, and he couldn’t quite think clearly anymore.

“There.” Vulpes’ voice was clear, not muffled or tinny anymore, and something round pressed against his back. A hand slid up his chest and neck to rest on his stubble-covered cheek. “An even battleground.”

Arcade’s breath quickened and then caught as the fingers on his cheek walked around to the back of his neck and combed into his hair, pulling him forward. He remembered the brief kiss they’d shared at the Wrangler, how short it had been and how it had taken days to even take his mind off it for a moment. Then Vulpes’ lips were on his again, and lingering. Vulpes tugged on Arcade’s lower lip with his teeth and somehow the blackness around him grew even darker, turning to a void that was nothing but him and Vulpes, and when had his arms found their way around Vulpes’ back? Did it matter? Why did it matter when it was intoxicating anyway?

He tasted like smoke – the real stuff they grew across Arizona and down into Mexico, not the ancient stale things from before the war – and something metallic Arcade couldn’t quite place. Arcade dug his fingers into the hard, toned muscle of Vulpes’ back, gripping into the leather of the Ranger duster as Vulpes tugged on Arcade’s too-long hair.

The air felt almost cold with Vulpes’ heat pressed against him.

The kiss broke, slowly, but they stood like that for a few moments longer, their foreheads pressed together. “Does that help you to understand my feelings towards your opinions?” Vulpes whispered. His eyelashes flitted up and down in a blink against Arcade’s temple.

“Nope,” said Arcade in a tone of mock-seriousness. “Not a clue. Have to try again, I guess.” His blood pounded in his ears as his breathing slowly returned to normal.

Vulpes laughed softly, dropping his head to Arcade’s shoulder. “I may disagree with you on many things, may not see them the same way you do, but I respect your thoughts. Your reasoning.” He sighed, pulling away. Arcade wanted to hold him there, but the middle of a sewer was no place for them to linger in each other’s arms.

For an instant, while Vulpes put his mask and helmet back on, they were no longer touching, and Arcade ached with the loss of it. It felt like a schoolboy romance, he just wanted to grab and hold and be held, and fuck the whole war it can happen or not without them. But he still couldn’t accept the idea of living under the Legion, with or without privileges that could be brought by Vulpes’ status. Not for the first time Arcade wished he could simply not-care.

“We should get moving.” The tinny voice was back; the moment was over.

Their fingers found each other again in silence, and after a few more minutes walking in the sewer tunnel they turned. Arcade still couldn’t see anything, making him stand perfectly still when Vulpes let go of him and shuffled around – apparently wiring up a small lantern to a battery. The sudden intrusion of light blinded him for a moment, but when he could see again he found that they were in a small alcove off the main section of the sewer. There was a long curtain across the end, and a door to the side. If he listened closely, he could hear voices chattering somewhere on the other side of the curtain.

Vulpes explained as he began digging through a box filled with weapons and clothing. “This is one of my Frumentarii safehouses. This doorway, and the grate as well, leads to an upper area of the Thorn. We can stay at the bar there for a time, then once night falls I can escort you back to Novac.”

Arcade frowned, not at all certain he wanted to _go_ back to Novac. At least not yet. “I’m not a child. I’m twice your age. I can walk the Mojave alone.” Immediately he cringed, realizing how his words sounded. “I didn’t mean it like—”

“I know.” Vulpes pulled a simple t-shirt, ratty jeans, and a dark leather jacket from the crate in front of him and started stripping out of his NCR armor. When his fingers moved to his belt, Arcade quickly started studying the cement that made up the walls of the sewer. It was a deep grey, pock-marked and scarred with age, and permeated a smell that was absolutely horrific when one was too close. Arcade felt for them.

After everything was plunked safely into the crate, and a certain person was safely dressed fully again, Vulpes strapped a hunting revolver to his thigh and tucked a knife into his boot. “Come. Leave your lab coat here. We can take it with us on our way out. The ladder just across there leads to the surface near the edge of Freeside. It’s less conspicuous than the main Thorn entrance.”

It wasn’t the first time Arcade had been to the Thorn, but it _was_ the second. Pit-fights between the wasteland’s wildest just weren’t the sort of thing he was interested in. He’d found that out almost as soon as he’d shown up in the first place. Little had changed since then, though it had been years since he’d been there. The woman at the bar smiled at Vulpes and offered him a beer (“and one for your friend, too,”) and left the pair of them alone to talk.

“Come here often, stranger?” Arcade asked, leaning sideways on his barstool and putting on a dramatic frown.

“Often enough,” Vulpes said with a tiny grin. He lit a cigarette for himself, then offered one to Arcade.

“Sure,” he said, taking it and allowing Vulpes to light it with the end of his own. “After today I could use one.”

“You shouldn’t have gone.” Vulpes didn’t look at him, taking a swig of his beer.

“Alone?”

“At all.”

“Oh.” The cigarette in his mouth proved a useful way to hide Arcade’s wince. It was unfair of Vulpes to expect him not to go and find out the truth for himself. Still, he wasn’t wrong. Going had been a stupid decision, made with little planning and executed with minimal precision. “I’m not quite as experienced in these things as you are.”

A tiny laugh and another swig of beer. “Your distinctive look leaves you questionably fit for my line of work.”

Arcade held in his quip about Vulpes’ line of work being the exact opposite of that of a Follower. He was rather proud of himself for it, and sat up a little straighter.

“May I ask who you’ve told?” Vulpes kept his voice quiet, continuing to stare straight ahead across the bar and not looking at Arcade. Two fingers held his cigarette loosely to his lips while he waited for a response.

“Just Mick and Ralph. And Rotface, too.” He really hated the ghoul’s name, but it was what he chose to call himself. “I wanted to tell Bea and the Garrets, but things just sort of happened and that hasn’t happened yet.”

“The Garrets would never leave,” Vulpes said with a sigh, lowering his arm to rest his hand next to an ashtray. “Neither will Beatrix. Rotface cannot seem to decide which might be worse: to leave the city or stay in it. Mick and Ralph will flee with the child, likely soon. I can see that they’re provided escort.”

Escort. “Maybe tell the escort to leave the skirts at home, yeah?” Arcade laughed, though Vulpes only smirked, and took a drink of his beer. It was bitter and flowery; unlike any other beer he’d had before. It was strange, but not unpleasant. “You don’t have to help my friends you know. They can manage.”

“I want to.” Vulpes still refused to look at him.

Arcade leaned over the bar top until he caught Vulpes’ eye, then straightened again, bringing Vulpes’ gaze along with him. “I don’t want your conflict of interest to get you in trouble…”

Vulpes scoffed, shaking his head as he turned back to his beer. “Then I shall simply have to make certain that it doesn’t.”

Behind them, at the edge of the platform, a small crowd started cheering. The snarls and hisses from the pit below them signaled that someone had paid for a fight. From the sound of it, Arcade guessed it to be a nightstalker and some sort of gecko. He didn’t want to guess which would win.

“A poor choice,” Vulpes said, shaking his head. “A pairing in which, most often, neither creature is victorious. And, frequently, both perish.” He took one last long drag on his cigarette before stubbing it out. It made Arcade realize he’d nearly forgotten his own, though it still rested between his lips. He pulled the smoke of it into his mouth and let the strong flavor linger.

“How often do you come here?” Arcade asked, not exactly finding it strange that Vulpes would know, but strange that he would say it.

Vulpes shrugged. “It’s somewhere I frequent when I want to disappear for a while but prefer not to sit alone in silence. Though I am usually alone, or perhaps with a colleague, at least there is human company.”

The idea that Vulpes might not like being alone was something entirely new to Arcade – though as he began to think about it, it made more and more sense. Being in the Legion, he would rarely, if ever, have had much privacy. Being ignored might not be such a problem, might even be preferred, but being genuinely alone might be jarring comparatively. “Well, if you ever want to be around someone…” Arcade started, not entirely sure how to pose his words. With a blush creeping up into his cheeks, he opted for a joke. “I hear Jacobstown is filled with giants with better bedside manner than mine. But you’re welcome to find me anyway. Since you seem to always know where I am anyway, it shouldn’t be too hard.”

“As I have said before,” Vulpes said with a grin, “your company is not unpleasant.”

For a moment, Arcade simply sat there and drank his beer, happy enough to forget the war, the courier, and all the problems waiting for them on the surface. “You know, you’re not so bad either,” he said, smiling. Really smiling, for the first time in a very long while.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much people for coming back to this fic after all this time, and to new readers: thank you and welcome!! All your comments mean so much to me, you have no idea. ♥♥♥♥♥
> 
> Shout-out to @[CoffeeMinx](http://archiveofourown.org/series/90529) for forever burning the wonderful phrase "Arcade Gannon: Not Objectionable" into my mind.


	23. Chapter 23

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter feels a bit wonky, maybe a little rushed? Not sure. But I'm going to post it anyway. The idea is there at least. And if I keep powering through this, I should be able to finish the story soon! I'm trying to expand what I had outlined, so bear with me. I could have made this the last chapter, but I went a TOTALLY different route just to play around a bit more! The original ending was way too abrupt anyway. So. Uh. Enjoy!
> 
> Also, if there are any weird errors that I didn't catch in proofreading, please feel free to point them out to me. I've just started using dictation software to write with, and we're still getting used to each other. I had it read me the chapter (you should have heard it when it tried the Latin!) and I think I've caught most of it, but I can't be sure.

Arcade did not at all want to go back to Novac.

At the very least, he’d promised to take care of Mick & Ralph’s shop while they were gone. It didn’t feel right leaving the Followers to deal with everything alone either. He was surprised he hadn’t heard anything from Julie lately, but it wasn’t uncommon for her to simply be too busy to keep tabs on every aspect of her employees' lives. Maybe she was busy getting ready to deal with the probable influx of patients that would appear when the battle finally came to New Vegas.

After several hours of cajoling though, and a promise to keep someone posted on the shop, Vulpes convinced him there was nothing he could do in New Vegas – at least until they needed doctors. Even so, Freeside had several capable doctors. Novac didn’t have _any_ when he wasn’t there. All they had was a sniper and a mountain of Dinky Dino toys. That and several missing residents.

Still, the idea of turning tail and running from Freeside yet again? It wasn’t entirely appealing, and with good reason – not the least of which was that the trek was less than enjoyable. He was running out of excuses to leave, and he hated lying to people all the time just because he was too much of a coward to actually _do_ something about the Legion. So far, the only thing that he’d been able to do was to tell other people to get out of the Legion’s way as well. _Well, no one said I was a hero. Especially not me._

Of course, everything that Vulpes had predicted had turned out to be true. Mick and Ralph, along with their son Sam, had left Freeside. Vulpes had ‘manufactured’ a handy-dandy caravan for the three of them to travel with — a caravan that was formed entirely out of Frumentarii. The idea, Vulpes said, was that not only would Arcade’s friends get to safety, but he himself would be able to place more Frumentarii in the NCR. While this wasn’t ideal in Arcade’s mind, it was at least going to work for both of them. The caravan had, of course, also been open to anyone else that Arcade wanted to encourage to leave the city.

That didn’t mean anyone else wanted to go though.

Arcade knew just as well as Vulpes did that James and Francine would never leave their bar. The Wrangler had been their home for all of their lives, and under their direct control for… who even knew how long at that point. Francine didn’t even bother to mention the idea to James. “If we wanted to leave, we would’ve already done it,” she said with a weak smile. “Tell your boyfriend he’s sweet to offer though. What you two are trying to do for this city? It’s more than anyone else’s done in years now. With the Legion knocking at our door, it’s hard to believe that anybody at all would try to do anything for someone other than himself.”

 _Boyfriend_. He still wasn’t entirely comfortable with the idea of that word. It implied all sorts of things that Arcade just wasn’t ready to accept. Might not ever be ready to accept.

Wanted desperately to accept anyway.

Similarly, Bea had no intentions of simply letting the Legion walk on in. Though she was no fan of the NCR, she wasn’t ready to accept a group that would take any one of her gender as slave at random simply because they felt entitled to do so. Arcade assumed that any ghouls in the city would be considered “non-targets” until they themselves entered the fight and started shooting in the wrong direction.

She, like Rotface, knew quite exactly who Vulpes was – but she, rather unlike Rotface, refused to help the man with anything. While it was her prerogative to go down spraying bullets, Arcade hurt to know that she might not be there the next time he came back to the _(Old fucking Mormon goddamned)_ Fort. It wasn’t like she’d had a short life, but she was his friend. She’d even sent him his stupid jar of star caps when she thought he was leaving for good.

“I want you to know,” Vulpes told him as they walked down the long stretch of highway together towards Arcade’s all-too-comfy home in Novac, “that I’ve been talking to Caesar.”

“Well he is your boss,” Arcade joked, shoving him gently.

Vulpes smirked. “My, aren’t you a quick one.”

Arcade laughs, watching the ground beneath his footfalls. “Sorry, what have you been talking to him about?”

“Perhaps I shouldn’t bother to tell you,” Vulpes said, “if you’re going to be silly about it.” The smirk on his face and grew into a full-fledged grin.

“I’ll behave,” Arcade said, still laughing. “I promise.”

“Then I shall indulge you. But… Where to begin?” Vulpes crossed his arms, his long, pale fingers dripping over the faded leather sleeves of his Ranger duster. “There are in fact many things I have been discussing with my Lord Caesar. The most relevant to you, I would suppose, would be the treatment of the Followers of the Apocalypse upon the seizure of New Vegas.”

Arcade raised an eyebrow. “Oh?” It was something Arcade had long wondered about: since Caesar was a Follower himself once, would he spare the rest of them? Julie has always insisted that if Caesar were to take the city, she would lead the Followers out of it herself. Many people said that it stood to reason that he would spare them, but they were missing a few key details: the Followers were the only people who hated him more than those he conquered; they were embarrassed by him, and he was likely not unaware of their feelings towards him; and on top of that, it was unlikely that he would risk revealing to his people the true origin of the name Caesar, and of the culture they had adopted so crudely. And the Followers wouldn’t exactly be keen on helping Caesar keep his secret.

“Despite his initial misgivings, I have convinced my Lord that their work to rehabilitate the drunks and junkies of Freeside coincides well with his own wants,” Vulpes said. He raised his eyebrows, as though he wasn’t entirely convinced of his words himself. “If you were simply to cleanse the profligate West of its dissolute by purging them, he would, unfortunately, all too soon be out of a population. Many of these people, however, can still be saved.”

Shaking his head, Arcade laughed, “maybe you shouldn’t be the one to pitch that to Julie.”

“Don’t worry, I’ll give her a hug.”

Despite himself, Arcade laughed. He couldn’t help it. The sad thing was, it probably _would_ help the situation if he hugged her.

“Either way,” Vulpes continued, “the fact stands that one of Caesar’s messengers is likely on his way by now to tell the Followers that their Fort will be considered a safe zone for the duration of the battle. While there will, of course, need to be some discussions about what will and will not be tolerated once the city is under Legion control, they will under no circumstances be considered active targets. If they do, for some reason, decided to fight back against the Legion, this olive branch will, of course, burn — right alongside the rest of Freeside’s dissolute.”

“How comforting,” Arcade muttered.

Vulpes’ eyes narrowed. “I have done all I can for them,” Vulpes said, “and it is far more than I needed to do.”

Arcade sighed, his shoulders slumping in defeat. “I know. I’m sorry.”

“Secondly,” Vulpes continued, as though nothing it happened, “it was decided that if we were to spare the Followers for their ability to transform the dissolute into productive citizens, it would make sense then for them to have dissolute to transform.”

“What do you mean?” Arcade asked, not entirely certain of where exactly this train of thought was heading.

“There are, as it happens, many settlements in this area which have not yet met such unfortunate ends as those of Searchlight and of Nipton. Many of them have not chosen to embrace the NCR's presence, and Caesar is willing to extend a hand to them.” A tiny grin crept onto Vulpes' face, subtle enough that Arcade wasn’t entirely sure it was even there. “As such, he will be sending representatives to Primm, Goodsprings… and Novac.”

Arcade stopped in his tracks, forcing Vulpes to wait for his legs to reconnect with his brain. “You’re telling me you want to take over Novac, and you’re telling me this is supposed to be a favor?” He stared at Vulpes like he had just realized he’d spent the last months telling his innermost secrets to a stranger, and was sickened by it.

“Would you rather I simply let Caesar destroy them as he had planned?” Vulpes asked, his voice calm, nonchalant, casual.

“Yes! I mean, no! I mean… I don’t know.” Arcade took several deep breaths to calm himself. “I just don’t know how to react when you’d say things like this so plainly. It’s like you hide things, even though you don’t mean to be hiding them. I told you, you’re hard to read.”

“I try not to wear my emotions,” Vulpes said. “It is… Consider it a part of my job description. And, in fact, I have found that I am often much more open with them when around you.”

Arcade groaned, forcing himself to continue trudging down the highway to where Vulpes was waiting for him. “The worst part is that I _know_ that. It’s just hard… to read you… Which is starting to sound repetitive.” He sighed, shaking his head. “I hate discussing anything to do with this war.”

Vulpes said nothing, simply continuing down the road at Arcade’s side. Arcade was grateful that Vulpes hadn’t said something like ‘well, it’ll all be over soon.’ When had he gotten so angry with him for Caesar’s presence in the Mojave, as though it was directly Vulpes’ own fault?

What made Arcade so easily frustrated was that he understood these were attempts at compromises – essentially gifts that Vulpes risked his position and his influence with Caesar (and therefore possibly, no, _probably,_ his life) just to try to make Arcade happy. To try to make things easier between them. And Arcade hated throwing them back in his face and saying ‘that’s not good enough,’ but it wasn’t. The Legion was a slave army. It destroyed lives, families, entire cities and factions. Making things ‘ok’ for a handful of people didn’t suddenly make all of that forgivable. In some ways, it even made it worse.

Part of him wondered if Vulpes even understood war. He lived it, sure, but he seemed so numb to the effects of it, the _results_ he strove for… The Fox was still just a Kit really, at least in comparison to the damned Sheep. Maybe this war was just something they weren’t ever going to be able to agree on.

Nothing ever said the timer was counting down to when they would be _compatible._ Just when they would meet.

“Was there anything else you wanted to tell me?” Arcade asked, keeping his voice quiet. He didn’t want to sound angry anymore. He didn’t have the energy for it.

“Yes, but I could refrain if you would prefer.”

A bitter laugh bubbled from Arcade’s lips. “I would say I’m a big boy and I can handle it, but evidence points to otherwise. Tell me anyway?”

“I believe that the Courier should no longer be allowed to be involved in this little war. She is no longer useful and has long since proven to me her disloyalty to Caesar.” Vulpes, as he so often did, said this with no emotion, but his eyes betrayed the bloodlust he felt towards her. “She should be eliminated.”

“Maybe we should wait and talk about this inside?” Arcade suggested, his voice raising half an octave, as they neared Lady Gibson’s shack. He was fairly certain he could see No-bark talking animatedly with her – at least, he assumed it was No-bark, as No-bark was the only person he knew to wear a colander on his head.

A few minutes later, they were creeping quietly up the stairs towards Arcade’s room at the motel, having gone in through the back entrance to the courtyard so that they would avoid being seen by Manny. He fumbled with the keys in his pocket, still not entirely used to having them — maybe it was just something to do with his last memory of standing in that spot.

Soon enough, they were back inside the dark old room, like his entire trip North had never happened. Vulpes sat down in his customary chair by the door, and Arcade at the edge of his bed. He kicked off his boots, frowning when a thin trail of sand followed them, even more shaking out of his socks when he peeled them away as well. It meant having to borrow the vacuum later from Daisy, which also meant facing her potential wrath for having not said anything when he last left.

Every single one of his problems here seemed so inconsequential… Daisy being upset with him. Manny being just a little too clingy at times. Having to deal with 200-year-old carpet instead of a wood or tile floor. Sharing a kitchen instead of just going to the Wrangler for a meal. What did any of it matter if the Legion came? They’d all be hauled off to work for the good old Army anyway, except for those of them that were crucified or worse. Truth be told, a nice bland old crucifixion was probably one of the better outcomes of the Legion coming to town. The horror stories he had heard…

And yet Vulpes was somehow a part of all that. He had done horrible things, disgusting and disturbing things, saying nothing but ‘it’s just part of the job,’ and still Arcade couldn’t bring himself to hate him. Despite everything, he still found himself wishing that Vulpes had sat next to him on the bed instead of in the chair by the door.

“You want to kill her?”

Vulpes took a moment to ponder his words before speaking. “In all honesty, I have wanted to remove her from this equation for some time now. She is a threat to many of my interests.”

“ _She’s a child,_ ” Arcade shouted, standing up and gesturing wildly with his arms. “A stupid, whiny, bratty little girl, who just wants to be a princess and rule the world. She’s too young to even realize what she’s doing. You can’t possibly know what war really is at that age.”

“Boys younger than she is now have died for the Legion,” Vulpes said, his tone that of forced calm. “She may not yet understand the wider implications, or perhaps even the real consequences of her actions, but she knows perfectly well what she is doing. She is not obtuse. She has seen death; she has lived it.”

 _She has lived death_. What a peculiar thing to say, but he was right. She really was living on borrowed time, gifted time, however you wanted to say it. She died that night that Benny had shot her back in Goodsprings, and maybe it had done something to change her. But now that she’d been brought back to life, what right did anyone have to take it away from her again. “She’s just a child…” He dropped back to the bed and stared across at Vulpes, unsure of what else to say or how else he could say it.

Vulpes stood and crossed the room to sit next to him, but now that they were talking about _this_ Arcade wasn’t as happy about it as he would have been. Vulpes hesitated for a moment, his lips parted but no words falling from them. “It is either the life of one child, who cares not for the lives of others, or potentially the lives of everyone you know in Freeside.” He shifted, putting a hand on Arcade’s arm. “You said that Francine had been happy to see someone actually doing something for Freeside for once. We have the ability to do something much, much bigger for it now.”

Arcade felt sick just thinking about it. “You’re turning my Hippocratic oath into a Hypocritical oath.”

“It is not my intent.”

“Victus quoque rationem,” Arcade recited, his eyes falling closed, “ad aegrotantium salutem pro facultate, judicioque meo adhibebo, noxamvero et maleficium propulsabo.” [Also I will, according to my ability and judgment, prescribe a regimen for the health of the sick; but I will utterly reject harm and mischief.]

“Forsan miseros meliora sequentur?” Vulpes suggested. [For those in misery, perhaps better things will follow.] His voice was flooded with something that sounded so foreign from him: hope.

Arcade sighed and flopped back onto the mattress. "So my choices are ‘do less harm’ or ‘allow untold amounts of harm to be done?’”

“So it would seem…” Vulpes voice was quiet; it seemed that, for once, he couldn’t quite find the words he wanted to say.

“Wonderful.” Arcade dislodged his fist from his hair, noticing that he’d been pulling out tiny tufts of it. He reached across over the other side of the bed and shook it from his hand. It trying to cling to his sweaty palm. “I can’t just justify killing someone, let alone someone so young.” His shoulder popped into place unexpectedly with a terrible crack that made him jump.

Vulpes twisted gracefully so that he was laying down on one elbow, facing towards Arcade. “You have killed Fiends and Raiders before, have you not?”

“The Fiends and Raiders were shooting at me,” Arcade muttered. “That makes it different.”

With a laugh, Vulpes asked, “and so if Six were shooting at you, that would make it different?”

“Yes!” Arcade shouted, his arms flying wide open, nearly bashing Vulpes in the nose. “I mean no, no of course not. I mean, if she was really trying to kill me, I suppose it would. But…” He pressed his palms hard against his eyes until vivid colors began to swirl in the blackness. “Do you really think she wants to kill me?”

“Can you truly question that after what has happened?" Vulpes said incredulously, his eyebrows raised. “Several of her followers chased you, shot at you until they could no longer find you, which was only because I brought you somewhere they didn’t think to look." Vulpes sat up straight, and Arcade copied the motion. “I do not feel that I should have to answer this question for you.”

Arcade sighed, his face falling as his eyes fell closed. “I know… I know…”

“I realize that at one point you considered her a friend, or at least someone with whom you were on amicable terms. But the fact remains, she has tried to kill you more than once before: once by giving you into slavery to Caesar, and once much more directly now. I would assume that there have been several more times where she is attempted to do something similar, though perhaps through somewhat more covert means."

The air in the room felt stale, more so than normal. He needed a smoke. A drink. Maybe take a page out of Cass’s book and go for a swim and a bottle of whiskey. Anything, really, so long as it wasn’t in this tiny, sweltering room. If anything, he needed to think, and he wasn’t certain that was something that he could do with a clear head so long as Vulpes was around.

Vulpes reached for Arcade’s arm, but hesitated, bringing his hands back to rest in his own lap instead. His voice was very quiet when he spoke. “I can give her quick death. A better one than that which Caesar would order for her. It would be kinder…”

“I need to think about it for a while,” Arcade said, cutting him off. “You’re asking me to _literally_ weigh someone’s life in my hands.”

“As you should,” Vulpes said, his expression grave. “A life should not be lightly taken. But… do not forget what I have offered. It is not something I will be able to provide later on. If she moves forward with her plans and betrays Caesar, there will be nothing I can do for her.”

Arcade didn’t know what to say.

“I’ll go down to the kitchen and heat up something for us to eat. It’s been a long day…” Vulpes left his duster and Ranger armor in the chair by the door, electing for much simpler clothing to cook in. He paused with his hand on the door frame, one foot out on the balcony, looking back in at Arcade. “I am sorry to have brought you into this, but I felt you had the right to be involved. It would not have been right to simply eliminate her and neglect to inform you. But perhaps this is a decision you should not have had to make.”

Shrugging, Arcade stared blankly at the wall, not looking up. He kept on staring at the wall until he was certain that Vulpes was safely at the bottom of the stairs and on his way to the kitchen. As stupid as the idea seemed, part of him was already thinking about running straight back to New Vegas — this time with the intent of warning Six. But he knew that didn’t make any sense, and he wasn’t about to put his boots back on after walking all the way to Novac in them.

Arcade was not a soldier; these are not the kinds of choices he was ever meant to make. Choosing the way that someone would die wasn’t something he had ever wanted to have to think about, and that certainly hadn’t changed. The very idea of it felt wrong, and he wasn’t entirely certain that he could stomach it. If she were an adult, if she was truly just another Caesar in the making, maybe then it would be easier. Caesar himself had earned his death: the conqueror of 86 tribes. Had Six?

He tried weighing the facts one by one, as though he were Osiris, laying the deeds of her life upon the scales.

Her men had shot at him, though that was a direct result of her screaming bloody murder when in a room alone with him. If he thought about it, and was feeling particularly generous, that was actually somewhat justifiable. She had given Cass everything she had ever wanted — lots and lots of booze. Which, while certainly not the best thing for the woman, was genuinely a kind gesture in some ways. It was the intent that was questionable. She had banished both Ronnie and Raul to the Brotherhood bunker. In essence, that had actually saved them from what had been going on in the rest of the Mojave. Arcade wasn’t exactly sure of her involvement in Boone’s disappearance, but she hadn’t claimed to have killed him.

Even with all that aside, she had still amassed an Army in favor of the Legion control of New Vegas and was planning to wage war against Freeside with it. He reminded himself that if she were to conquer it for the Legion it would be the most popular _pro-slavery_ city South of New Reno, instead of _just_ the most popular.

A tiny voice in the back of Arcade’s head whispered ‘ _maybe she’ll change her mind?_ ’ With a sigh, Arcade told the voice to stuff it.

On a whim, he wondered how Vulpes would fare against Osiris’ scales.

There were several points against him, and fairly large ones at that. Most notably was the slaughter, the massacre at Nipton: the great Legion lottery. Searchlight, too, was his doing, which had led to the deaths of many and the ghoulification of a handful more _. Pretty sure I just heard the scale make a dent in the floor with those two._ Arcade suppose there was something to be said for the fact that, as Vulpes had told him, he had just been following orders. Sure, a decent person would rather die than destroy two full cities and murder both populations, but the wasteland wasn’t known for being filled with decent people, and Vulpes had been brainwashed as a child.

Still, since Arcade had met him, Vulpes had worked steadily to accumulate several points in his favor. He had gone out of his way to protect Arcade, a man he barely knew, and in the beginning someone who he hadn’t known it all. Supposedly he had even assigned men to watch over him like his own little flock of guardian angels — which could either come across as incredibly stalkerish or incredibly sweet, depending on one’s point of view. When his friends were in danger, Vulpes had seen to their safety, even seen to the protection of their property. It was risky for him to do, and he did these favor so frequently that Arcade had almost come to expect them. He felt his cheeks turn red. _Who’s the spoiled, whiny, bratty child now?_

Another thought returned to the forefront of his mind to be weighed: the idea of having Novac turn peacefully into a Legion territory, and one of _civilians_ if he had interpreted Vulpes correctly. The thought had, of course, come up before, when nearly half of town had showed up to clean out the disused bungalow. And Vulpes had been there. Arcade couldn’t help but wonder if the idea at first been implanted in his mind during that conversation. What would it even mean for Novac? What happens to the Legion civilian towns and populations?

The door opened and Vulpes came back in, balancing two bowls of steaming hot noodles on one arm. He shut the door behind him with his foot, carefully taking hold of the more precariously-balanced of the two bowls with his free hand, and set the dishes down on the table. “I informed Manny that you were feeling under the weather from your return journey,” he said, with a mock-serious expression. “The sun seems to have such a strong impact on your well-being, after all.” He smirked, seeming to be rather proud of himself for this little lie.

Arcade couldn’t help but smile back at him this time. He pushed himself up from the bad, cracked his neck first to one side and then the other, then took the empty chair across the table from Vulpes’ armor.

Vulpes moved the Ranger gear to the floor. “What have you been up to?”

“Oh, nothing really. Just weighing your heart on Osiris’ scales…” He tried not to smile as he took the spoon that Vulpes offered him.

Vulpes carefully set one into his own dish as well. “Perhaps it would be easier if I were to cut it out for you first?”

“Maybe! Just don’t do it in here, the carpet is bad enough as it is,” Arcade said with a laugh, his shoulders slumping forward to defeat as he shook his head.

Vulpes sat up straighter, attempting to look indignant. “Of course, what do you take me for? A savage?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _Many, many thanks to_[VeinsOfOpal](http://archiveofourown.org/users/VeinsOfOpal) _for catching a bunch of errors and pointing them out to me!!!_  
>  _Additional thanks to_ [JackAmatus (StellaDraco)](http://archiveofourown.org/users/stelladraco) _for spotting a few more for me!!!_


	24. Chapter 24

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Mush ye B-plots! In all seriousness, I'm trying to tie everything up, so there's a good hunk of B-plot at the beginning. Hopefully it doesn't come across as straight filler!
> 
> Again, new dictation software. I think I caught everything this time? Still, don't be shy if you spot something! I'm sure this could use some more real editing too, but that's a whole different story. Feels rushed, I'm not thrilled to be doing a time jump... I might go back and do a chapter 23.5 or something. Dunno. We'll see.

After two nearly unbearable weeks of pretending everything was normal, Arcade was pulling his hair out — literally. He watched as long, blonde strands of hair tangled up in the shower drain, cringing as he realized he’d have to yank them all back out sometime later. At least now that his hair had gotten so much longer it would hide any places where he pulled out a few strands too many. So long as he didn’t pull out too many more, anyway.

First, it had been Daisy. Daisy, with her innate ability to somehow figure out absolutely everything that was going on in a situation, and her automatic response to chew him out for anything she didn’t fully approve of. And she didn’t approve of Vulpes.

“Now, I’ve seen that boy lingering around, getting up to no good no doubt; and don’t you think I didn’t remember him as that ‘traveler’ friend you came through here with before,” Daisy had said the moment Vulpes had left town to return to Camp McCarran for one reason or another. “Now I right liked him that first time you brought him around, but you don’t have one lick of business with one of them Ranger fellas.” Arcade didn’t even try to defend it, didn’t bother to mention that Vulpes was, supposedly, ‘the one.’ If he had, he’d have to explain all over again at some point why that ‘Traveler/Ranger fella’ was masquerading as a Legionary.

This was where the problems with Vulpes really started, the war aside: Vulpes was very good at pretending, especially at pretending to be someone he wasn’t. In fact, if he’d been born before The War he probably could have been either a great actor or a very rich conman. But Arcade? Even as a child he never really enjoyed pretending to be something he wasn’t. He hated pretending because pretending felt like lying, and pretending and lying were too closely tied to his years spent running from anyone who disliked the Enclave enough to do something about it. Vulpes came upon his talents of his own accord, was rewarded for them, and practiced them much to his own enjoyment – even if it was for his work. Arcade avoided the practices as much as possible.

That meant, at least for now, the best he could do would be to just not respond to Daisy, and let her say to him what she pleased. If she thought Vulpes was a Ranger? Well, that was better than him being a Legionary. And since the whole town seemed happily convinced he was a Ranger, that would have to do.

Then there was Manny.

Manny was a great guy. A good friend. Very talkative. Extroverted and tired of spending his days stuck inside a giant dinosaur waiting to see if anything would happen. It probably hadn’t been quite so bad for him before Carla had gotten between him and Boone, but Novac wasn’t exactly thriving. The entire town’s population could be counted on three hands, and most of it wasn’t quite the right age to be satisfying company for Manny — even Arcade himself was a little old for him, really.

Still, every day after the sun set, Manny climbed down from Dinky’s mouth and expected to see Arcade waiting for him at the gate so they could have a late dinner together and shoot the breeze. Sometimes he did, sometimes he hid in the shower instead, much like he was doing just then. Once he’d tried spending the evening with Daisy instead but she’d just insisted on cooking for all three of them, meaning he’d had to deal with both of them at the same time.

In truth, Arcade had liked Manny a lot more before the man had found a visible interest in Vulpes. His blatant flirting had made Arcade have to focus hard on not balling his hands into fists, but that would have meant admitting to everyone that they were an item, and he wasn’t even sure what they were himself. Still, the way Manny watched him, casually threw him compliments and little throw-away lines about the color of his eyes or how very muscular he was… It all made him angry. More than angry, but he didn’t want to put words to whatever that exact emotion was.

On top of all that he was dealing with from Daisy and Manny, there was also the matter of Cliff: Novac’s latest Entrepreneur. Apparently he was still set on setting up the Dino Cave Dive Bar, and the idea of having Arcade, being the delightfully chatty and personable man he was, be its bartender. It was insane, and nobody seemed to agree with Arcade on this point. _Maybe they just haven’t been to a real bar in so long that they’ve forgotten what one’s actually like._

“We’ve got the new flooring in,” Cliff had told him recently over lunch, “but we’re having trouble tracking down a bar that’s the right size for the place at a good price.”

“Why don’t you just raid one out of some abandoned building in New Vegas,” Arcade said dryly, still staring out into space over his gecko kebab. He was starting to hate gecko just as much as he hated iguana.

“Well you know, I hadn’t thought of that,” Cliff said, his eyes lighting up. “That just might work!”

“Cliff! I didn’t mean—” but Cliff was already off and running to the dinosaur, to helpfully tell Manny all about ‘Arcade’s great idea’ for the Bar.

But none of it compared to the moment last when all of this compiled into one large file his mind, while the one and only Ada Straus berated him for trying to usurp her position as Novac’s doctor.

“…you’re kidding, right?” Arcade asked, attempting to somehow frame his now near-infinite incredulity in his expression. “You barely know which end of the stimpak to jab your patient with. You are, I believe, the _only_ ‘doctor’ I have ever known that sells their patients chems. Even your own bodyguards wouldn’t let you stitch them up. And, if you haven’t noticed, there’s not exactly any work for you around here anyway.”

Ada crossed her arms over her chest, obscuring one of her shirt’s larger blood stains from view, with a frown. “And with you here, I won’t be getting any of it!” she complained. “You’re putting me out of business!”

“Well I’ve already bought a room, so you’re just going to have to find a way to deal with it.” Arcade rolled his eyes. “Besides, haven’t you heard? I’m supposed to be a bartender now.”

If the scrunching of Ada’s nose meant anything, Arcade assumed she had in fact heard. “Then let’s hope your barside manner is better than your bedside. Whose idea was that anyway?”

“Manny’s, I think. Maybe Cliff’s, I don’t know.” He ran his fingers through his hair, gripping the back of his head with his arm. “It doesn’t matter; it was a bad one.”

Staring down the shower drain, Arcade was rapidly coming to the conclusion that his life was starting to clog up the drain — along with all the too-long hair, of course.

To his surprise, Six hadn’t yet lead an attack on Freeside, sending yet another shadow of doubt across his mind. _Maybe she reconsidered?_ He squashed the thought, finally deciding he’d seen enough to believe the attack _would_ happen. It was only a matter of time. At least when Vulpes had been there with him they were able to talk it out. Alone it was much harder to believe anything was real anymore.

He shut the water off as it started to run cold. For day he had been considering what Vulpes had suggested – ‘taking care of’ Six. As though she was a simple illness that could be cured with some broc flower tea, or a good day of rest. _Perhaps something Ada could handle. She could be my guest._ He hated the idea of killing in cold blood, felt nauseous every time he tried to make a decision about the matter. But was it truly cold blood anymore? She had proven herself a killer. A whiney, bratty teen with unrealistic views who had been told she was the center of the Mojave itself. What had she been like before Benny had killed her? It wasn’t worth speculating.

The fact of the matter was that she was supposed to be dead, and now that she wasn’t, the lives of Mojave’s residents hung from her fingertips. All she had to do was sneeze and people would die.

A soft knock at the door made him jump. He’d left the light off in the main room so Manny would think he’d gone to bed, though it was possible that even that wouldn’t stop him anymore. Before he could do more than wrap a towel around his waist, the lock clicked and the door to Arcade’s motel room opened. Either Manny had decided ‘to hell with decorum’ and broken in, or Vulpes was back from McCarran again (or wherever else the NCR had sent him as of late).

“You should be more careful who you let in. You find all sorts in the Mojave now.” Vulpes’ voice drifted towards him from the main room while Arcade quickly toweled off and put on his recently acquired bathrobe. “I could have been here to kill you.”

“At least I would have been fashionable for it.” Arcade, quite relieved, joined Vulpes in the main room while he dried his hair with the towel. “I’m just happy you’re not Manny. He’s starting to get a bit… pushy.” To his surprise, Vulpes wasn’t wearing his Ranger gear for once, but rather his leather jacket with individual pieces of armor strapped to it over a t-shirt and jeans. It was a casual look that he hadn’t seen on him outside of Freeside, but a good look all the same.

Vulpes lips slid into a sly grin as he moved to Arcade, wrapping his arms around the taller man’s waist. “Perhaps you should tell him your eyes are set on someone else?”

Arcade could feel a blush raising to his cheeks and casually covered his face with the towel while he continued to rub it through his hair. “Maybe! But I don’t know that will actually matter to him. He’s very obstinate.”

“I could speak with him on the matter…” Vulpes’ fingers twined together behind Arcade’s back.

“ _Don’t_ ,” Arcade said dramatically, dropping the towel from his hair. “He’ll just start flirting at you again.” He bit the inside of his lip, realizing he hadn’t meant to bring that up, but Vulpes just laughed and shook his head.

“I assure you,” Vulpes said, forcing sincerity back into his tone, “his feeble attempts have no effect on me.” He dropped his arms, much to Arcade’s disappointment, and turned back to his pack by the door. “Come. I have something you’ll enjoy.”

In truth, Arcade tended to get concerned about things Vulpes thought he might enjoy, as the things Vulpes enjoyed were usually ‘work related.’ And that was still one area where they violently disagreed. But Arcade followed him anyway, and sat down at the table across from him. Vulpes, grinning, held something under the table so that Arcade couldn’t see it until Arcade, shaking his head, closed his eyes. When he opened them a moment later, he wasn’t entirely sure what to say.

“Bread?”

Vulpes nodded vigorously. “Fresh bread. It was baked this morning,” he said, viciously ripping the loaf in half. “Caesar is having grain shipped North and West from regions with well-established farms, along with bakers and other necessary ingredients. This is the first fresh bread I’ve had since entering the Mojave.” He paused, thinking over what he’d just said, then added, “since leaving Flagstaff with the rest of my age-group for the War Front, really.”

Arcade was flooded with mixed emotions at his words. Thinking about a younger Vulpes fresh out of training and shipped North-West; the fact that Caesar was now so comfortable in the Mojave that he was settling in like this; the idea that this was obviously something very special to him and he’d hoarded it all day just to share it with him. It was an absurdly kind gesture, even if the other things it implied left him terrified. A soft smile slipped onto his face as he took the offered half of the loaf. The rich crust was crisp, with cracked edges and bits of white-brown flour still clinging to it, but the inside was softer and fluffier than any breads he’d ever seen in the Mojave (not that there had been many).

Realizing he still hadn’t said anything, Arcade quickly muttered his thanks and held the bread to his face to breathe in the rich scent. “I haven’t seen real bread in… I don’t even know how long. Somewhere around Shady Sands, maybe.”

Vulpes was already munching away merrily, but nodded to confirm he was at least listening. He tipped his forehead forward to obscure his mouth a bit as he said, still chewing, “no one makes it here.”

“I have never seen you so excited over anything,” Arcade laughed, watching Vulpes devour the bread in awe. “This… _happy_.”

“Call it a taste of home,” Vulpes said through another mouthful, swallowing before he continued. “I’ve been here since I was… well, since before the First Battle for Hoover Dam. I would have been at least 16 then. It… it wasn’t my first choice to go to the Mojave. It just happened to be the Front. Legionary training was less than painless, but I enjoyed Flagstaff. The mountains reminded me of my tribal home.” No sooner were the words out of his mouth had the color drained from his face, as though he’d admitted a much larger secret than he’d intended without realizing it.

In a fast attempt to move past the mention of the ‘t-word,’ Arcade finally took a bite of the chunk of bread that had been patiently waiting in his hand for the past several minutes. He grinned his approval as he savored the flavor, the soft texture of _real_ food for the first time in he wasn’t even sure how long. Maybe even longer than Vulpes had been in the Mojave — after all, Daisy and Arcade had first settled in Novac several years before the Hoover Dam issue even arose.

“This isn’t gecko,” he mumbled through a mouthful, his whole face melting into a delirious, lazy grin and his eyes drifting shut. It would have been better with something to go with it, maybe a gravy or butter or even just some cream, but right then he wasn’t sure he cared. “This isn’t gecko at all. It’s not even iguana. I can’t remember the last time I had something without gecko or iguana that wasn’t out of a pre-war can or box.”

Vulpes held up a finger. “I grilled mantis steak for us a few weeks ago.” He tore another bite of bread away, crumbs tumbling from the crust to the table. It made him look vicious, the way he sank his teeth into it.

He remembered their awkward dinner with Manny, happy to be avoiding a similar situation. “Oh. You’re right.” He took another bite of the bread. “Still.” _What are table manners anyway when there’s **real food** to enjoy?_

Pausing for a moment to look at the last few bites of his bread, Vulpes asked the one question Arcade had been hoping not to hear. “Have you made your decision about the courier?”

_Table manners are very important. It is improper to speak with one’s mouth full._ He chewed slowly, sighing through his nose. The war always did seep in through the windows somehow, even though they were barred. “No.”

Another silent pause. “No you have not, or no you will not?”

“ _She’s a child._ And even if she wasn’t, I can’t kill someone in cold blood.”

To his surprise, Vulpes nodded. “I am not surprised. I would have been almost disappointed if you had agreed, though I cannot say I can allow her to continue regardless…”

Arcade looked away, wanting to look at anything but Vulpes. His eyes settled on the couch he’d pulled out of one of the disused houses down in the lower area of Novac. No one had been using it, after all, and there was no reason to let perfectly mediocre furniture go to waste. Besides, it would mean Vulpes would have somewhere to sit other than his usual chair by the door. That was if, of course, Vulpes didn’t decide Arcade wasn’t worth his time if he wouldn’t do something about Six, or die at the next battle for Hoover Dam, or get recognized somewhere and killed, or maybe got killed by some other Legionary who just wanted to say he’d done it. He didn’t like the way his face scrunched up when he thought about those concepts.

“Caesar will march on the Dam soon,” Vulpes said, his voice quiet. He avoided Arcade’s gaze just as much as Arcade avoided his. “He would not be so generous to his soldiers otherwise. Six too seems to be preparing to march, perhaps assuming the best course of action to be to take New Vegas while the Legion and NCR are busy with Hoover Dam. Either or both events will likely happen soon, at any rate.”

Eyes falling closed, Arcade scoffed at himself. “And here I sit in Novac trying to decide whether or not I’m really willing to run a bar. Have I always been such a strong contributor to society? Or is this just a phase?” True, there was little he could do from Freeside either, but at least there he felt like he could keep busy.

“You could move to Flagstaff,” Vulpes offered. “Once we win the Dam I’ll be going back there to train more Frumentarii to infiltrate the NCR.”

Now Arcade was starting to get angry. It seemed that Vulpes’ only solutions were to pull him away from the war like a damsel in distress. “Perfect,” he snapped in annoyance. “I’ll just pick up and leave everyone I know, again, to run away from the scary war and the NCR.”

Vulpes crunched down the last few bits of his bread, brushing his hands clean of crumbs before reaching for Arcade’s arm. “I can find a way to bring you _and_ your friends there safely. I could move you into the NCR even, if you would prefer. I’d just have my second train recruits instead.”

“That’s not exactly any better.”

“Then what do I have to do?” Vulpes snapped, visibly working to keep his voice down. “I would tear the moon from the sky to hoist you out of this war if only I could reach it. I offer it for you, your friends, I arrange to have friends and homes looked after, I use my influence with Caesar to bend his views on your Followers – his own people – just to see them kept safe because it will please you. And none of this is enough for you to trust or follow me?”

“ _Nulla salus bello,_ Vulpes,” Arcade spat bitterly. “There _is_ no safety in war.” Vulpes let go of his arm like it burned him. Instantly Arcade wanted to pick the words back up like crumbs off the table and pop them into his mouth, but they’d been said. “I appreciate everything you’ve been doing for me. What you would do for _us_ , but how can I just pack up and move every time the war heats up? I’ve spent my whole life avoiding the NCR because of my Enclave ties. I’m _tired_ of running. Maybe Novac isn’t perfect, but between it and Freeside I’ve got something I’m comfortable enough with.”

Vulpes eyes were closed, his back straight. “It’s not often you speak my name.”

“…what?”

His eyes opened again. “My name. You tend to avoid it. I think it reminds you too much of who I am and where I’m from. But you won’t use any of my false names either. No Vulpes, no James, no Fox.”

Arcade blinked, not entirely certain just how to respond to such an open ended statement. It was true, he didn’t often say his name, but it hadn’t been intentional. “I… I guess I don’t, do I?”

Sighing, Vulpes stood, stripping away his leather jacket and all the bits of armor tied around his arms and legs. “May I?” he asked, gesturing to the bed once he’d pulled away everything but his plain shirt and jeans. Arcade nodded with a vague gesture, trying to communicate that it was obvious he could and he needn’t have asked.

Forgoing all his careful grace, Vulpes flopped down onto the bed and stretched out, laying with his arms stretched wide to either side as he stared up at the ceiling. They both remained silent for a few moments, an uncomfortable silence only interrupted by Arcade’s quiet chewing. It wasn’t that Arcade didn’t like Vulpes’ name or the fact that it was Legion, he just didn’t quite know what he was supposed to call him. They’d only even known each other a few months. What if he had something he preferred people to call him? Or what if he was pronouncing it wrong? That would be even worse. Just as he was just about to speak, Vulpes started talking again.

“I don’t talk about my… origins very often. I try to avoid reminding others that I was not born into the Legion. There is a stigma that comes with being an assimilated tribal. But you aren’t of the Legion, and have asked questions about my past before, thus I assume that the concept does not bother you. So, I will tell you more. Perhaps it will lead you to trust me more, as I will quite clearly be proving my trust in you.

“I come from a rather non-descript tribe within Eastern Utah. We were much like any other tribe. Hunter-gatherers with no sense of direction, but a comfortable enough life that we didn’t look for anything else. My father was the leader of our tribe, my half-brothers in line for that title after him. My mother was a wife he took for convenience and to bear him more sons when his first wife died. Some illness or another claimed her. My own mother’s name was Sana. I believe it was a tribal name for some sort of red flower that grew nearby.

“My sister and I were very close; I would suppose those who share a womb often are. But she was always ill, always needing care. I knew what she needed and when more often than most. At times even our mother deferred to my judgement. We played rhyming games when she would start to get anxious, just before a stroke came on. It became such a ritual that, looking back, I don’t know if they helped or hurt. She was kept out of sight, and so I kept out of sight as well. No one could know that a child of the Great Tomar was so ill. So little Yesha and Coro didn’t exist to the tribe, even if we existed to our parents. They didn’t treat us unwell, really, but it was a lonely existence. When Yesha died it was even lonelier, though I myself was no longer kept away from everyone, given that I was a strong and healthy child.

“When the Legion came, not long after, I was told that my name was dead, that _I_ was dead, but they could save me. I _felt_ dead, and so with nothing better to left to live for, I gave it my all. And it did save me.” Vulpes sighed, pressing his palms to his face. “I have given everything to the Legion, as it has given everything to me. It has its flaws, but it tries to be good. If you could only see that, I think you would understand why I cannot leave them.”

“Oh Vulpes,” Arcade said with a tired sigh, standing up. “Vulpes. James. Fox. _Coro_. I’ll call you whatever you want. But let’s not talk about the war anymore. I can’t. What you say the Legion has done for you, how you feel about it? That’s how Freeside is to me. It’s a shitty, terrible place and I don’t know that I could leave it if I tried.” He moved to sit next to Vulpes on the bed. “And even if it did some good for you, I don’t want the place to become Legion. I don’t want anything to do with Legion. I don’t want to be deciding whether or not murdering a teenage girl is better or worse than leaving her alive, or to be telling my friends to get out of town because it’s about to get bad.”

“I could make Novac a good place for you,” Vulpes said, his voice quieter now that Arcade was next to him. “I could ask Caesar for it after the Battle. You and Daisy could stay as long as you both live. All you would need to do is _let me._ ”

“ _Nulla salus bello,_ ” Arcade repeated grimly. “But thank you, for trying.”

They sat in silence for a long while, the room still only lit by the light at the back of the room and that which leaked out from the doorless bathroom. Arcade assumed that Vulpes’ mind was going about a thousand miles a minute, but his own was stuck in neutral. He felt happy sitting there next to Vulpes, so long as he didn’t think about anything outside the door in front of him. Unfortunately, that was becoming harder and harder to do.

“I should get changed for bed,” Arcade muttered.

Vulpes nodded, pulling himself up and moving towards the couch, but Arcade stopped him before he reached it. “You can sleep in the bed if you want.”

When Arcade came back from the bathroom, dressed in a ratty old pair of pajama pants, Vulpes was already asleep.

 

* * *

A cool breeze ruffled through Arcade’s hair, comfortable, but not something his sleeping body expected to come from the stagnant air of his room in Novac. He let his eyes drift open just enough to see that the door was cracked open. It was still dark out, the night sky spattered with a handful of stars that he could barely see through the light on the balcony.

Frowning, he pushed himself up from the bed. It was only when his eyes landed on Vulpes’ pack by the door did he remember that the bed wasn’t supposed to be empty — something he wasn’t sure he would ever get used to the idea of. He stood, stretching his arms up and out so that his shoulder clicked back into place and his back crackled, and quietly shuffled to the door. Pulling it open, he saw Vulpes sitting on the floor of the balcony, his legs slid under the railing and dangling over the edge, his arms resting on the bars of it geometric pattern. A cigarette rested delicately between two fingers.

“Did I wake you?” Vulpes asked, keeping his voice low and soft.

Arcade shook his head ‘no’ before realizing Vulpes wouldn’t see it. “No,” he croaked, then cleared his throat and tried again. “No, I’ve been having trouble staying asleep lately.” It was a tiny white lie, but it didn’t bother him much. The sky seemed to stretch on forever in front of them, only interrupted by the glow of the balcony lights and the vibrant, glowing color of New Vegas to the North.

“It has always astounded me,” Vulpes continued, still staring out into the night, “how many fewer stars seem to drift over this place than back in Flagstaff. How many fewer are there than were in Utah. There is a science to it, of course; to light and how it travels and how it goes unseen. But doesn’t it seem strange that these places should be so lacking when they hold so much? That the city of lights cannot see the stars?”

Arcade huffed a tiny laugh, crossing his arms and leaning against the doorframe. “I hadn’t really thought about it.”

Vulpes took a long drag on his cigarette, sighing it back out slowly. “Even in the Fort we blot out the stars with fires. Where the light does not persist, there is smoke to do the job for it.” He scoffed in frustration, shaking his head. “Even here there is little to be seen by comparison.”

“And here I was thinking it seemed like such a full sky.” He pushed away from the doorframe with his shoulder and instead sat down cross-legged next to Vulpes.

Wordlessly, Vulpes offered his cigarette to Arcade, but he shook his head. He didn’t need it. They were for moments when he was stressed or upset. Sitting out in the cool night air alone with Vulpes under the stars was neither upsetting or stressing. Though the way the tiny red glow of it reflected in Vulpes’ eyes was certainly having an effect on Arcade.

Vulpes watched him carefully out of the corner of his eye, a quizzical look washing over his features as Arcade boldly stared right back: the sheep, staring down its hunter. This time it was the Fox that was surprised. Arcade reached out his hand and ran it along the side of Vulpes’ face, thumb brushing along his cheekbone as it slid back into his hair. Gently, Arcade pulled Vulpes’ face so they were looking at each other straight on, eyes locking. The cigarette, hanging loosely between Vulpes’ fingers over the rail was entirely forgotten.

“I can’t help you do it,” Arcade said, forcing himself not to look away. “But I won’t do anything to stop you from it. Just do whatever you think is best.”

“And what will you be doing?” Vulpes asked, eyes still questioning. “You don’t often sit back and allow this war to go how it will.”

“I’ll try to talk to her. Let her hear another point of view. If she attacks the city it won’t end well. You say Caesar wants his Rome; I don’t think he’ll want to destroy it more than it already is.” Vulpes’ hair tickled his palm, but Arcade didn’t want to pull his hand away.

Vulpes nodded once, a tiny motion that didn’t break the contact between them. Without looking, he stubbed out his cigarette on the rail and flicked it away. “It is… ill-advised. But I don’t expect you’ll listen to me if I ask you not to.” Arcade opened his mouth to object, but Vulpes cut him off. “And I would not have it otherwise. You attempt that which I would not, and that is not something I say to discredit you.”

Laughing, his rebuttals all falling away, Arcade tugged softly on Vulpes’ hair. “One of us needs to have a conscience.”

Vulpes let his head be pulled back with the movement, grinning. Arcade pulled a little more, exposing Vulpes’ neck to him, feeling his skin begin to flush as Vulpes’ eyes fell closed and his lips parted. He let go, quickly pulling his hand away and looking back out at the sky, but Vulpes caught his wrist.

“Sorry,” Arcade muttered, still not looking at him.

“As I have said before,” Vulpes said, moving Arcade’s hand back up to his neck and holding it there, “your company is not unpleasant.”

Moving quickly before he lost his nerve, Arcade crashed himself against Vulpes, kissing him hard. Their teeth ground together and he squinted his eyes shut tight, gripping his fingers into Vulpes’ skin. Before he could do anything more, though he was tempted, he let go and stood, retreating back into the room. He laid down underneath the blanket, but pushed it down to his hips, too warm now even with the door open. Outside, he could hear Vulpes laughing, but the Fox stayed outside, allowing the Sheep time to recuperate. And though they couldn’t see each other, both men were smiling contentedly.


	25. Chapter 25

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Uh. This got longer than it should have, I think. But its as long as it needs to be. So. 
> 
> If you want the (fic) 'Canon' ending, read through to the end of this page and you're done. 
> 
> For the 'Alt' ending, read down to the *~* line and skip on to the next chapter. The end of chapter notes will be the same either way. The difference in the ending is only in the last 700 words or so, so you'll still be reading the vast majority of this page.
> 
> Thank you so much for sticking with me to the end of this! It's been a crazy ride!!

Early morning in Novac:

The smell of cheap hot coffee, dust kicking up in the breeze to give it that extra special flavor in every cup, the brahmin casually mooing to each other in their pen. Daisy would have already been up for an hour by the time the sun finally deigned to poke out from behind the mountains, and shooed Manny out to his tower. Most people tended to stop in to the kitchen tent, grab a cup of coffee or a breakfast snack, and head back to wherever they came from. But Cliff? Cliff knew his work. Everything would be ready for an instant sale the moment he opened the door. So unless someone was heading towards the dinosaur, Cliff would linger at the kitchen bar and mutter at people – sometimes until well into the mid-afternoon.

Cliff was not a morning person. Not unless he had work to do, anyway. When there _was_ work to be done he was like a raider on Turbo, going every which way faster than you could ever hope to keep up with. And he didn’t necessarily want help, he was just happy that there was something for him to do. Because most morning were exactly like this one: empty.

This was why the he, Arcade, and Vulpes were splitting a radscorpion egg omelet for a late breakfast – spoils of a hunt for what Arcade referred to as ‘literally anything fresh that isn’t gecko or iguana.’

“Arcade,” Cliff started, eyes squinting as he was deep in thought, “you’re a man of science, right?”

Arcade groaned out a forced laugh. To say that questions like that never ended well would have been an understatement. “Well, if you call playing with flowers and hoping something good will come of it ‘science,’ then yes. I’d say that I’m a medical researcher with an impossible mission who sometimes comes out of his corner to administer a few stimpaks when there’s no one else to do it.”

Cliff continued to stare off towards Dinky from his barstool, head slowly cocking to the side as he tried repeatedly to grind out an answer to his own question before he gave up and asked it. “Why is it that Dinky’s thermometer is stuck?” He rested his chin on a fist, absently fingering the rim of his untouched coffee with his other hand. “You’d think that the red goop that _is_ in there would still move around a bit, wouldn’t it? Even though some of it’s gone?”

“What?” Arcade shook his head, silently applauding Cliff for coming up with the questions no one else thought to ask. “I mean…” He frowned. Why _didn’t_ it work? Sure, some of the alcohol had leaked out through a crack some years ago, but it had been patched before the entirety of the contents had come out – mostly because Cliff had insisted on it, for the good of his business and thus the good of the town. Theoretically, that alcohol should still expand and contract, though it certainly wouldn’t be providing an accurate reading anymore. At least not in Fahrenheit. Maybe they could come up with a new system to mark it with and run around saying things like ‘it’s 65° Dinky out.’ The thought would have made him laugh if he wasn’t still trying to find an answer to the question. “I don’t know. It should work.”

Vulpes put a hand on Arcade’s arm. “I’ll return in a moment,” he said, his voice quiet. He glanced up, and Arcade followed his gaze to look at a man leaning casually against the side of the motel, keeping out of the sun and smoking a cigarette. The brim of his hat was pulled down low, making him look like one of those old wooden cowboy silhouettes that pre-war folk would sometimes put up outside to decorate their houses with in the name of ‘Americana.’ Arcade would never understand their craving for the ‘freedom’ of the American Old West – it sounded just a little bit too much like the Wasteland it had eventually turned into.

Trying not to focus on the thought that the man was probably one of Vulpes’ Frumentarii, or at least an informant he’d bought, Arcade nodded a simple acknowledgement. He redirected his thoughts back to trying to figure out what was wrong with Dinky’s thermometer.

“That’s what I thought!” Cliff said, splaying his arms in front of him, eyes wide with bewilderment. “But it doesn’t work!” He didn’t even appear to notice when Vulpes walked away, continuing on with his rant. “It should work, but it just sits there and says the same damn thing all the time. The same damn 36°.”

“Are you feeling alright, Cliff?” Arcade had to try not to laugh. Cliff was always a little foggy in the morning, but this was the type of abuse he’d expect from someone pumped full of jet, not from someone who just hadn’t bothered to pick up and drink his coffee yet. “You seem pretty upset by this.”

Indignant, Cliff’s expression fell into a frown. “Of course I’m upset! That dinosaur is my livelihood! And it’s broken! My Dinky is _broken!_ And we have to help him!”

This time Arcade couldn’t help himself, a full on cackle falling from his lips before he could stop it. “I’m sorry, Cliff,” he choked out, trying to regain his composure. “I really shouldn’t be laughing. But you’re suddenly so upset and it never seemed to bother you before!” Arcade shook his head, still laughing as Cliff crossed his arms, grumbling.

“I’d better get to work,” Cliff muttered. “Maybe I’ll come up with something while I’m there. All day. _Alone_. Where no one visits.”

_At least you’ll have your dinosaurs._

Arcade didn’t bother to call out to Cliff as he wandered towards his shop, coffee in hand. He’d forget about the whole thing in another hour anyway, especially if someone came in to visit him.

He picked at his omelet, wondering if he should cover Vulpes’ to keep it from getting cold. Cold radscorpion egg tended to get slimy somehow in a way that was genuinely unpleasant. Looking up, he saw that both men were now leaning against the wall of the motel, smoking and talking quietly. The line of the shadow cast by the building had moved so that it just barely caught the tip of the stranger’s boot. Had he been standing there watching them long? For all he knew the man could have been there all morning, just waiting for Vulpes to notice him.

Vulpes gestured toward the tent, and to where Arcade was sitting, but the man shook his head, throwing the end of his cigarette to the ground. Apparently Vulpes wasn’t surprised, because all he did was nod, and the two men went their separate ways: the man onto the road North, and Vulpes back to his place in the tent beside Arcade. While it seemed that Vulpes had been careful not to flat out _run_ over to the stranger when he noticed him, he took his time walking back.

“What… was that about?” Arcade asked, hesitating because he wasn’t so sure he really wanted to know.

At first Vulpes stayed silent, picking at his breakfast with his fork in a very un-Vulpes way. The whole of Novac seemed too quiet then, with Manny in his tower and Cliff in his shop, leaving no one to force them into making small talk. Daisy was probably tinkering away at something in her room, and most of the bungalow-dwellers stayed in the lower part of town during the day anyway, since they had kitchens of their own to use. Andy had been called away by the NCR a few days earlier, and Ada was still angry that Arcade was ‘trying to take her job’ and had disappeared again – in the company of Bruce Isaac, apparently. It basically meant that there was no one left to bother them even when they wanted bothering. And that Vulpes couldn’t stall forever.

“News from Freeside,” Vulpes answered, stabbing violently at piece of egg. Smaller bits splattered out sideways, spreading tiny yellow flecks across the countertop. When he didn’t offer any more information, Arcade decided to prod him.

“Any specific _type_ of news?”

“Yes.”

“…oh.” _Specific and to the point, as always._

Vulpes dropped his fork, seemingly no longer interested in breakfast.

“You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to,” Arcade added quickly, looking away. “I probably don’t even want to know.”

Vulpes sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose and closing his eyes. “I’m certain you don’t. But I will tell you anyway.”

Arcade waited, apprehensive. He felt a tension building in his shoulders that would almost certainly form into painful knots later, but this time he didn’t push. After everything that had gone on over the last few months, he found that if Vulpes said something, he believed it. It was a concept that still concerned him at times.

The pair remained silent as they finished their breakfast, and the only sound thereafter was the clanking of dishes as they were scrubbed clean in the wash bin. Their fingers brushed as Arcade handed each freshly washed piece to Vulpes to dry and put away. Once, Arcade tried to catch the other’s eyes, but to no avail. It seemed that the Fox had every intention of simply ignoring the Sheep until the moment was just right.

It wasn’t until they had gone back to Arcade’s room that Vulpes spoke again. He cleared his throat, staring down at his pack by the door – ready to be picked up at a moment’s notice, though a handful of items were scattered about the room. Arcade had pretended not to notice them appearing one-by-one, but he couldn’t help but grin when a blue-spined copy of The Odyssey, in the original Greek, appeared on the bedside table. It was on that book that Arcade settled his gaze, sitting down on ‘his’ end of the couch. After a painfully long moment, Vulpes sat down in his chair by the door. The implications of that alone made Arcade nervous, as Vulpes had been frequently claiming the other end of the small couch as his own – the only reason the ‘Arcade side’ and the ‘Vulpes side’ distinction even existed in his mind. Arcade couldn’t help but find it now felt empty without the man there beside him. Even though he was only a few feet away, the distance between them felt longer than it should have.

“You know I have told you things before that Caesar would not have permitted me to,” Vulpes said quietly, his unfocused gaze still burning into the pack on the floor. “From the first I have found myself making… ill-advised decisions, at least in the eyes of the Legion, where you have been concerned.”

Not knowing whether to make a joke or thank him, Arcade kept quiet. After a brief pause, Vulpes moved on.

“I have thought, on occasion, that I should perhaps ignore my own interests to better serve the Legion. It should be obvious that these thoughts have never taken hold.” He ran his hands through his hair, fisting them behind his head and closing his eyes as he let out a long, slow breath. “So I would assume that to start now would be just as ill-advised.”

Arcade relaxed his hands as his knuckled began to pop painfully, having not even noticed he was clenching them inside his pockets. “Oh?”

A ghost of a grin crossed Vulpes face, followed by a half-hearted chuckle. “In for a penny…” He finally looked up to Arcade, incredulity in his eyes as he continued. “My sources tell me that the Courier has begun to move her forces into place for a silent attack on the city. It is, of course, my responsibility to see that she is not given the chance to speak the order to do it.”

“Oh.” So that was it. “So you’re… you’re going to go…” Arcade didn’t want to think about it. She was just a girl. “You’re going to go take care of that?” he finished, refusing to put the precise word to the act.

With a strange grin, Vulpes shook his head. “I’m afraid I’ve been… unfortunately detained, in Novac. I won’t be able to leave when I expected to.”

Arcade blinked, confused. “What exactly is it that you _aren’t_ saying?”

“I’m simply saying that I will not be able to reach her right at 9:00am tomorrow in the empty space behind the Old Mormon Fort as I should. It will simply be impossible. Perhaps someone else could, if he so chose, attempt to force her to see reason. That way, when I could eventually reach that place, perhaps around 9:05am, I could spare her life. The life of a child, as I have been repeatedly told.” Vulpes stretched out his legs, crossing them at the ankles in front of him. He let his eyes defocus and took in the general look of the ceiling, lounging comfortably in what looked like a particularly uncomfortable way. “Didn’t you want to go see Bea and Julie? I am fairly certain you were heard discussing them this morning. It would surprise no one if you were to travel North for a few days to visit them.”

“You’re serious?” Arcade asked, standing. “You… you. I’m not even sure what you’re doing.”

“Neither am I,” Vulpes said with a laugh. “But I will give you something I should not, again. A chance to do what you believe to be right.” With quick movements, he straightened himself and stood. “I would like to shower; these creature comforts are quite addicting. If someone were to want to leave without my knowing and thus being able to prevent them from doing so, that would be an ideal time to do it. Especially if I were to leave the radio on.”

Arcade stumbled forward and grabbed Vulpes, wrapping his arms tightly around the Fox, kissing him squarely on the lips. “Thank you,” he muttered, not sure if it was appropriate or not. “I’ll do what I can.”

“It’s not a difficult journey,” Vulpes said, feigning ignorance. “I’m sure you’ll manage. And once you’re there? Well… we’ll just have to wait and see. But as long as you’re happy, so am I.” He pried himself free of Arcade’s grip, smirking as he stalked over to the counter by the bathroom and flicked on the radio. “Say hello to your friends for me?” The tune of “Blue Moon” humming from his throat was soon drowned out as he turned the volume up higher and higher on the radio before disappearing into the bathroom.

It didn’t take a second telling for Arcade to be out the door and jogging up the road North.

 

* * *

 

If he’d been smart, Arcade would have thought to take a moment to bring something with him. To bring _anything_ with him. There had been a bottle of water in the pocket of his lab coat that he was bringing to his room from the kitchen tent, but beyond that? He didn’t even have a weapon on him except for a pocket knife. It had always been a problem for him to get so excited about something that he forgot to think it through, but this one really took the cake. If he got out of it alive, he was sure Vulpes would scold him for it.

Not that the idea of being scolded by him was particularly unpleasant.

Still, every crunch of sand, every scurrying creature, every rise of the wind sent shots of pure adrenaline pumping through him – each one encoded with _flight flight flight._ If a raider found him, who knew what would happen? The idea of being stuck in some smelly drug den being forced to make psycho for eternity wasn’t high on his list of things that were overly exciting for him. In fact, it fell just above being stuck in a smelly drug den being forced to make jet for eternity, with the smell of the raiders only being overpowered by the smell of the brahmin. Neither idea was particularly enticing, but he’d take being stuck making psycho over stuck refining brahmin shit any day.

So when he saw the 188 not far ahead, he bolted for it, not caring if it meant he’d have to wait and rest a few minutes once he reached it. With all the adrenaline he’d created so far he didn’t think a few minutes run or rest would really change things anyway. There was a handful of caps in his back pocket that would probably be enough for another bottle of water as well, and that was rather appealing after being out in the Mojave sun for so long.

He didn’t rest long there. Even if he hadn’t been in a rush to get back to the ( _Old. Freaking. Mormon._ ) Fort, he didn’t want to deal with questions about Ronnie. Her absence hadn’t gone unnoticed, and it seemed that most of the folks at the 188 were worried about her.

“Did she say when she’d be back?” Michelle asked, worry etching lines into her brow. “We haven’t seen her in a while. Dad’s starting to worry.”

“No idea,” Arcade said, hiding his grimace in a stretch of his whole upper body. “Well, I better get going. Places to be.” Before she could answer, he picked up his second water bottle and jogged off down the ramp.

 _Either that trip isn’t as long as I thought, or I’m actually starting to get in shape again_. The entrance into Freeside was glittering away not far ahead and it wasn’t quite dark yet. Usually the trip would take a good twelve hours, but with all his jogging and random bursts of running, he’d cut it down to something closer to nine. He was sure to feel it in the morning, but it would be worth it if he and the others could come up with a way to convince Six that she didn’t need to rule any part of Caesar’s empire. In the best of all possible worlds, maybe they could even turn her against Caesar – but somehow, after everything that had happened, it didn’t seem very likely.

Arcade stripped off his lab coat and crumpled it up in a ball, though it would still be obvious who he was. As Freeside’s resident blonde giant, he’d gotten used to being recognizable at a distance. He slouched a bit as he pushed the gates open, but it didn’t make him feel much shorter.

“I’d offer to sell you a tip,” came Rotface’s all-too recognizable rasp, “but I’d guess you already know what’s new around town.” His lipless grin was more than a little unnerving; Arcade couldn’t quite tell if it was forced or not. “How’s retirement treating you?”

Arcade barked a laugh, shaking his head. “Is that what they’re saying this week? I thought I was an undercover NCR agent.”

“Maybe last week you were. But now you’re retired living with your family down south.” Rotface nodded solemnly and pointed a gnarled finger at him. “I’d stick with that one, if I were you.”

“I’ll take it under advisement.” There was still one cap left in his back pocket, and as usual he dropped it into the ghoul’s lap as he walked by. “You sure I can’t convince you to go to the Followers’ Fort or something? It won’t be safe out in the open like this.”

Rotface just shook his head. “This is my patch,” he said, patting the ground. “I’ll head back into my little house back there if things get hot, but this is my patch and I won’t be leaving it.”

“If you change your mind, you know where we are. I think.” Arcade sighed and laughed lightly. Some people just didn’t change.

Freeside was empty. He had thought that the last time he’d been through it, some weeks before, the place had been empty. This time though, it was genuine emptiness, not just a lack of people on the streets. No fires burned where groups would cluster together inside ruined buildings, not a sound could be heard but for his own quiet footfalls. He may as well have dressed up in a deathclaw skin, for that he’d be able to blend in amongst the crowd. Just to be safe, he ducked out of sight when he saw a securitron whirring along, and waited for it to turn back the other way before he hurriedly made his way back to the front gate of the Old Mormon Fort.

Which was _shut_.

In all his time in New Vegas, he’d never once seen the front gates shut. He knocked awkwardly, hearing the bustle inside come to a quick silence as he did so. “It’s me,” he said quietly, then repeated again a little louder when he realized they probably couldn’t quite hear him through the door.

The smaller door cut into the gate peeked open, then swung wide. “Gannon? You ought to either get in or get out, this place is on lockdown.” Bea took up most of the doorway, a shotgun in her arms but lowered to face the ground. “You here to help with the fight?”

“Sort of,” Arcade said, pushing past her. She pushed the door back shut again, dropping a metal bar into place across it as a barricade. “I know when it’s supposed to start. I want to talk to her first, see if I can reason with her.” Bea laughed, but Arcade didn’t stop. “I need your help. Everyone’s help. We need to think of something that will convince her that New Vegas shouldn’t be taken by her or by Caesar or by anyone.”

“And you think that one little chitchat the morning of the war is going to change everything?” she asked, quirking a hairless eyebrow.

Arcade bit his lip. “I don’t know. But I have to try. I just want all this killing to _stop_.”

“Starting to sound a bit like Jules.” A grin split Bea’s face, and she wrapped an arm around his shoulders. With her high-heeled boots on, she was as tall as he was. “Well, time’s a-wasting.”

Soon enough, though in Arcade’s opinion they were already far too late, a large group had accumulated in the upper floor of Julie’s tower. Arcade, Bea, Julie, Old Ben, and a handful of Followers crammed themselves into the tiny room, seated anywhere they could find space. While Bea, Julie, and blue-haired Sam had all settled along Julie’s bed, and everyone else in chairs or simply on the floor against the wall, Arcade paced in the center of the room, thinking out loud.

“She wants to think she’s a princess,” he spat, rolling his eyes. “And she doesn’t care if the whole place has to burn down and be rebuilt for that to happen. I don’t think even Caesar wants New Vegas destroyed, but if Six does what she’s planning to? Even he won’t be able to stop her. There just isn’t time.”

“A _princess?_ ” Bea asked, choking the words out through a fit of laughter. “ _A princess?_ ”

Julie put a hand on her arm. “We have to remember, she’s a young girl. What sounds ridiculous to us might sound perfectly reasonable to her. Psychologically, she feels like the world owes her something for what happened in Goodsprings. It may not be unreasonable, though unrealistic, for her to want something as grand as that.”

“A _princess_ though,” Bea repeated, shaking her head. “I can’t help it. It’s laughable.”

“What’s not laughable are the troops she’s put up in every building with an empty room,” Ben interjected, apparently not amused at all. “I got a good count on my way here yesterday, and by then there were already close to fifty. That’s more than enough to take care of the Kings, and maybe to take out the Garrets too.”

“Are they ready? It was kind of them to offer to lend us some of their guards, but I’m more concerned for their…” Julie wrinkled her nose, “…establishment… than I am for this place. This is a medical facility, primitive as it is, and even the cruelest of armies respect a medic’s ground.”

Arcade crossed his arms, still pacing back and forth. It was starting to make him dizzy in the small room, but he needed to keep moving. He couldn’t just sit still anymore. “She’s still just a kid. A kid that doesn’t understand anything and doesn’t know the rules can’t just be bent however she wants them. I’d have taken the men, to be honest.”

“We know you would,” Bea muttered with a sly grin. Sam smacked her arm to quiet her, but she just laughed and ruffled his hair, leaning back against the wall behind her.

“What else do you know about her?” Julie asked, ignoring Bea’s comment and fixing Arcade with a serious look. She pulled her legs up to her chest and crossed her arms in front of them. “Why New Vegas? Is it this place in particular that interests her?”

“Even if it was, we couldn’t just shove her onto someplace else to be somebody else’s problem,” one of the other doctors said. She was young, one of the newest recruits to the Followers of the Apocalypse, and probably not much older than Six herself was. The difference a couple of years could make in one’s sensibility was suddenly quite striking to Arcade.

He shuddered, remembering how ready he had been to kill Six back in that barn, as though an aura of death permeated the air around her. “I’m not certain she really knows what she wants. She wants to take over the Legion at some point, but doesn’t seem to care when. She wants to take over New Vegas and have it, enough that she said she would take it from Caesar himself if she had to.” He shook his head, squeezing his eyes shut tight as he tried to remember. “Something about him ruling from Flagstaff and her ruling from Vegas? It didn’t really make much sense.” He shook his head, squeezing his eyes shut tight as he tried to remember. “Something about him ruling from Flagstaff and her ruling from Vegas? About dreaming big? It didn’t really make much sense.”

“Has anyone tried putting some Fixer in one of her drinks?” Bea asked sarcastically.

Again, Julie ignored her. “Then it’s about power,” she said simply. “Not about power over anything specific, just reclaiming her sense of self after Benny took her life away from her.”

“Seems a bit heavy for a power trip,” another doctor suggested, one of the ones that worked with what they called Freeside’s ‘chronic cases.’ It bothered Arcade that he couldn’t remember the man’s name. “Usually a person can reclaim their sense of self without taking over an entire city…”

“We don’t know what she was like before Goodsprings,” Julie countered. “She may have suffered other traumas that impacted her deeply enough to compound onto this one.”

“She doesn’t get it.” Arcade shook his head. “She thinks that by taking New Vegas, she’ll impress him somehow. All it’s going to do is piss him off. The only thing she has right is that the balance of power in the Legion is precarious, and that if the Legate took charge things would only get worse. We can’t do anything about that, but we have to be able to do something about her.” He stopped pacing finally, and plunked himself down in a free space against the wall, fisting his hand in his too-long hair. “I don’t want to kill her.”

“I’ll do it,” Bea said, raising a hand as though they’d found the answer and it had been obvious all along. “I’ll take her out easy as—”

“ _No_ ,” Arcade ground out between his teeth. “The whole point here is that we’re trying not to kill her.”

“You can’t tame something _that_ broken, Gannon,” she spat back. “It may be the only option.”

Julie raised both hands and attempted to settle the room with them. “Ok, let’s not get upset with each other. It might be the only option available to us, but we need to explore any other ideas we might have first. I don’t want to see this girl die any more than I do any of you.”

Arcade ripped out a few more strands of blonde hair and flicked them to the floor. “‘Let it burn,’ she said. ‘Let it burn and we can build it up again better. Bigger and new like the rest of his territory.’”

“Sounds to me she just wants to fix the place up a bit,” Ben suggested, shaking his head. “She’s got a funny way to do it, but that’s what it sounds like.”

“Make it some grandiose place from which she can rule?” Arcade asked. “That… that doesn’t sound wrong, really.”

“Well hell, she doesn’t need to deal with the Legion to do that,” Bea said. “With her controlling the securitrons, she could hustle the Casinos on the strip a bit. Get some cash and pay for materials and labor. Offer paying work and this place will get fixed up in no time. Folks would worship her for that without being formally conquered.”

“You’re saying she just needs a lesson in economics?” This time it was Sam’s turn to laugh, blue strands of hair falling across his face.

“It’s worth a try,” Arcade said weakly, but even he didn’t believe it would work. “We have to try something, anyway.”

The group spent the rest of the night debating back and forth, but, to Arcade’s dismay, no better ideas presented themselves. He kept an eye on the small digital clock on Julie’s desk – a gift from Ronnie a few months earlier – until the time read 8:00am. At that point, he gave up hope that an alternative solution could be found. He didn’t quite know what to do with himself then. He didn’t want to simply wait until 9:00 and hope that everyone’s clocks were in sync, but he didn’t want to stand around in broad daylight and wait for her either. Thankfully Bea, for the first time that night, had something useful to offer him.

“We’ve been prepping this place for the last week or so,” she said leading Arcade across the compound, stretching her arms out as they walked. People were buzzing around carrying supplies and ammunitions this way and that, making sure every station was as ready as it could be for the worst. Arcade even noticed a supply of handcuffs on the guards’ table, just in case. “Finding extra cots was the hardest part, since a lot of the locals have moved in here until after the excitement dies down. That and finding anyone that knew how to use a hammer.” She shook her head, rolling her eyes. “How these people are still alive, I can’t say. But we managed.” Laughing, she waved her arm in a grand gesture towards the back of the fort. “Viola. I don’t know whether to call them ramparts or scaffolding, but they get you to the top of the wall and that’s the important part.”

“So you’re saying we just sit up here and watch and wait until we see her?”

“Do you have any better suggestions?”

Having none, Arcade wordlessly proceeded towards up the ramp. In truth, it gave a nice view of the surrounding area. The circumstances were less than ideal though.

From the top of the wall, the pair was able to watch through binoculars as pockets of Six’s militia emerged from buildings. If the looks on their faces said anything, many of them were annoyed that they’d been woken up so early – something that might change the tides of victory if it did come down to a battle.

“Do you think it’s going to all burn down?” Arcade asked Bea, not focusing his eyes on anything in particular while still watching everything. “That this is the end of New Vegas?”

“Won’t be if I have anything to say about it,” she quipped, not putting down the binoculars. “I’ve lived around here since before the War, the real one. And I don’t plan on leaving yet.”

“What was it like?” The idea of her age still fascinated Arcade. He gestured vaguely, even though she couldn’t see him. “Vegas?”

She laughed and set the binoculars down. “Nothing like this, that’s for sure. It still tried to scream _classy_ while trash blew down the streets in the wind, and it still had booze and sex and gambling on every corner, but it was big. Thousands of people lived here. The bright lights never turned off, but you could at least get away from the heat because every casino had air-conditioning to make it nice and cold indoors.” She grinned, shimmying a little. “Damn I miss good old A/C.”

Arcade tried to picture it, with all the buildings intact and stretching up into the sky like the casinos on the Strip, but he just couldn’t. He’d seen pictures before, but somehow he just couldn’t see it really ever having been there. “Think it’ll ever be that way again?”

“What, like before the war?” She picked up the binoculars and focused them on a group of men exiting a building, but put them back down again a moment later. “Nah. Not really. Even if we do fix everything. I’m not saying we’ll know better, but there was just something about the place that can’t be recreated.” With a sigh, he handed the binoculars over to him. “I think that’s our girlie,” she said, pointing to a smaller woman in a group coming out from the building just behind Mick and Ralph’s place.

He focused in on her, twisting the lenses around, the nodded. “That’s her. I should get down there.” For another moment he followed her with his gaze, just to be sure she wasn’t headed right inside another building, but she stayed out in plain sight at the end of the road. He stood, handing the binoculars back to her. “Wish me luck.”

“Luck,” Bea said, taking his arm in her hand. “I’d loan you my lucky shotgun, but I get the feeling it’ll be more useful with me.”

Despite himself, he let the comment slide; he just didn’t want to argue anymore.

As Arcade made his way back down the ramp and towards the gates, he began wondering if this had been such a good idea after all. If it didn’t work, it could very likely end in his death. She might not even give him the chance to speak. And what then? What good would another corpse on the battlefield do? He pushed down that thought as his adrenaline spiked again, queueing up the chorus of _flight flight flight_ again in his gut. More than anything he wanted desperately to run, to leave the Mojave behind and move on to someplace new – _Mojave, mo’ problems_ Mr. New Vegas always said. But that wasn’t an option this time. So he forced himself out onto the streets of Freeside again, and ignored the little groups of red-clad militia men and women that eyed him like a brahmin ready for slaughter.

Thankfully they seemed quite content to ignore him as well. He was sure some of them should recognize him, considering his visit had most of them chasing him – so either he was entirely forgettable, or these people had been told to ignore him. Maybe they were new or hadn’t seen him in the first place. There was no way to know for sure, and the important part was that they continued not-shooting him, even if some looked like they wanted to.

Six was nestled in amongst the center of a larger group of the militia, gesturing back up the main street towards the Strip while she spoke. When Arcade glanced up that way, he saw what she was talking about. A large group of Kings had formed outside their main building, all looking better dressed for a date at the Vault 21 Café than for a shoot-out. Even the king himself was there in his old white suit, ready to do what he had to. It made Arcade ache knowing that if this went badly, most of them – if not all of them – would probably be shot to ribbons by the militia. Sure, they’d hit some down too, but leather jackets just weren’t great protection against bullets.

 _At least they’re not on her side anymore_.

Just weeks earlier, any one of the King’s boys would have beat the living hell out of anyone caught trying to mess with Six. Now they were outright enemies going to battle over the city. Ties and allegiances shifted fast in the Mojave, it seemed.

“Hey Six!” Arcade shouted, surprised by the volume of his own voice, as he approached her. The men around her stopped talking and all turned to face him as she pushed out from the little ring they’d formed around her.

“Arcade!” she said excitedly, clapping her hands together. “You came back!” She carried a plasma pistol he remembered her purchasing several modifications for, but holstered against her leg was the strange, toy-like gun that she’d claimed would fire massive laser beams down from the sky.

“I did.” _Solid. Good start. I am very good at talking._

“Are you ready? We’re about to take out the Kings in a few minutes.” She sighed shaking her head as she eyed the men. “I really wanted them to work for me, but that King bastard said he wouldn’t bow to anyone. Like he’s actually a king or something.”

“I’m not here to help you take apart New Vegas,” Arcade said, trying to keep himself from fainting as several guns immediately trained on him. If anything, he hoped they were good shots – or very, very poor ones. “I wanna talk.”

Six laughed, throwing her arms up over her head. “Of course you do. Your timing is always great, after all. Ok. What do you want to talk about?” She indulged him with a dramatic sweep of her head.

“You don’t need to do this just to make New Vegas better, or your own.” He took a steadying breath, standing up straighter. “If you listen to me, we could save a lot of lives today.”

For a moment, Six was silent. Shrugging, she asked, “so?”

“…what do you mean so?”

“I mean, so what? These people aren’t going to do what I want anyway.”

“I think they might if you hear me out.”

“I’m listening.”

Arcade took a step forward, but when several of the guns pointed at him cocked, he quickly took that same step back. “You already have all the muscle you need to take charge of the casinos on the strip. House had been squeezing money out of them for years, you could do the same and they would barely even notice.”

“I don’t exactly need money,” Six countered, raising an eyebrow. “I’ve got more than I know what to do with already.” She picked at the dirt under her fingernails, looking positively bored.

Seeing his time was already running out, he quickened his speech and said anything that came to mind. “But if you use it to buy materials and pay laborers, you could build up this city _however you wanted._ The laborers would then be able to spend that money back into the casinos here, which just cycles it back to you. You could create a stable economy, a population, and places for them to live and work for the rest of their lives. Anything you wanted here, they could build. Restaurants, shops, maybe even a school or a real medical facility. Hell, even more casinos if you really wanted.” He didn’t want to stop, for fear she’d interrupt him, but he had to breathe.

“I see how it is,” she teased, cocking her head to the side in a sassy little gesture. “You just want a better place for the Followers to work.” She stuck out her tongue at him, shaking her head. “I could be like House was, I suppose. But the trouble was that nobody liked him.”

“And nobody will like you if you go through with this today,” Arcade countered, reminding himself not to step forward. A cold sweat trickled down his neck as his heart pounded in his chest. _Flight, flight, flight._ “People know you. Nobody knew House. He was just a faceless taxman with his own police force.”

“Even if I were to do it, that wouldn’t fix anything. Caesar wants this city, and I want it more. That means that until we can come to some agreement, he’s my enemy.” She cracked her knuckles, giggling. “You’re a bad influence. I never cracked them until I met you.”

The fact that she was calling him a bad influence for something so mundane while about to start a war was almost rage inducing, sending boiling heat through his neck and clenching his fists. But Arcade checked himself, doing his best to ignore it. “All I’m saying is that there are other ways you can do this. If you want to take control here and build this city up so that it can really fight against Caesar, I think you’ll find almost everyone here will side with you.”

Six was quiet, making the silence of the guns pointed at him almost unbearable. Just in front of him he counted a pair of shotguns, a handful of pistols, and a glowing plasma rifle. There wasn’t anything he could do but wait for her to pass judgement on his thoughts, and hope to any higher beings that might exist that he’d live through it with minimal damage to his limbs. He couldn’t hear anything but the wind kicking through the alleys. It seemed that even the Kings behind him had stopped to see what would happen, because he couldn’t hear their quiet chatter anymore either.

He wondered if Vulpes would be disappointed if this didn’t work.

Vulpes. Was he here somewhere? Perhaps hiding amongst the militia men to attack from within, or with the Kings to attack from without. Maybe he’d joined in with the Followers, or the loose groups of mercenaries settled around Freeside. There was no way to know.

 _“I won’t let her touch you,”_ his memory echoed Vulpes’ words in his ears. Vulpes had said similar phrases many times about Six and about the Legion. And, though he believed him, Arcade wasn’t sure exactly what Vulpes could do about something like this. It seemed so stupid now that he would stand so out in the open, unarmed and unprotected, without even a Kevlar vest hidden under his shirt. Bruises would heal, even broken ribs could. A spattering of holes was less likely to.

Six held up her arm, gesturing slowly for her men to lower their weapons. One by one, they did, reluctantly. Arcade’s heart skipped a beat. Had it worked? Had he really convinced her that—

She raised her own gun instead. “I’m not going to let you trick me into something that won’t work,” she said, her voice barely audible over the blood pounding in his ears. “You’ve messed up my plans before, and I’m not letting it happen again. You’ve been a good friend, Arcade, but you just have to stop being so annoying about everything. You _always_ think you know better. Well maybe I know what I’m doing!” Her voice began to rise until soon enough she was shouting. “Maybe I don’t want your help now! I don’t want you to tell me what to do or how to do it or anything! I just want you to shut up!” She jammed a fresh ammo cell into place. “So shut up already!”

Arcade closed his eyes, hearing the bang of a bullet leaving its chamber.

So this was it.

This was dying.

It happened slowly, apparently. Or at least slower than he’d expected it. Some of his patients, ones that’d had near-death experiences, had said that their life had flashed before them when they thought they were going to die. That time seemed to stand still. Well they certainly hadn’t been wrong.

He waited a moment more, his brow furrowed, eyes still closed. Death certainly was taking its time. While part of him was afraid that if he opened his eyes, he’d see the bullet heading for him, the rest realized how fascinating it might be to see time slowed down so much. That braver, science-oriented side of him forced his eyes open – not wanting to miss what was very likely to be a once-in-an-end-of-lifetime experience.

Six wasn’t where Arcade had left her. She was crumpled on the ground, a sight that made him want to vomit up everything he’d ever consumed in his life. A whole chunk of her skull had blown off, leaving bits of grey matter muddled in amongst the blood. He hadn’t even heard her fall, over the pounding of his own blood. Had she taken her own life? It didn’t make sense. He leaned closer, examining the wound. _No. This is a bullet wound. And that is not a* gun with bullets._

All around him, the militia stared at Six’s body in a stunned silence. Without her telling them what to do, they didn’t seem to have any cohesion as a group. Some had already dropped or holstered their weapons, others still held them down as she had ordered moments earlier. At least one of the groups down the street had already disappeared, apparently not quite as loyal to the cause as Six would have hoped.

If she had been shot by one of her own, the rest probably would have tackled him the moment it happened. That meant that they were just as lost as he was. Arcade glanced around behind him – maybe one of the Kings had saved him but they looked as confused and uncertain as everyone else, though a bit more on the defense. They were still ready for a fight, if it came down to one. But most of the militia was dispersing already. The snake’s head had been removed. The rest of the body had nothing left to do. Only the ring that had surrounded her remained, and none of them was moving either towards or away from her yet.

It seemed that, for the most part, the crisis had been averted – for the moment. And Freeside would, for the moment, remain _free_.

 

* * *

 

Arcade didn’t stay in Freeside. While the Kings celebrated their gifted victory, and a handful of locals were happy to see the end of the Courier, Arcade couldn’t get the image of her skull splattered across the pavement out of his mind. But he’d been given his chance, and she didn’t take him up on the idea. She still thought she was immortal, that a shot to the head wouldn’t kill her; all it took was a bigger caliber.

So Arcade went back to Novac. Vulpes wasn’t there when he returned. It was quiet without him there, while the battle for the dam not far away was anything _but_ quiet. If it weren’t for the howitzers, he almost could have pretended that nothing was going on. They were like an alarm waking him up every morning, no matter how hard he pressed his pillows to his ears. When they finally stopped, he wasn’t sure whether or not it was a good sign. The rumors hadn’t really indicated whether or not one side was doing any better than the other.

With nothing else to do but wait, work on the Dino Cave Dive Bar continued. The walls had been scrubbed and painted over, strings of lights salvaged and plugged into a fresh battery, and Daisy had even been able to fix up yet another refrigerator. With Cliff hot on the trail of a bar, to be pulled out of Vault 3 – having recently been cleared of raiders, it seemed that the place would likely be able to open up soon. The only things left were to find the alcohol to stock the place, and Cliff had been able to pester just about everyone to chip in.

Just before the shelling stopped at the dam, they were paid a visit by the one and only Rose of Sharon Cassidy. Charon was still stomping around gloomily behind her, but this time he was following alongside her caravan.

“I thought you’d sold Cassidy Caravans?” Arcade asked, grinning. “Isn’t that woman over at Crimson going to be upset about this?”

Cass looked better than she had in months. Her skin was clearer and her eyes brighter, and for the first time in he couldn’t even remember how long, she wasn’t falling-down-drunk. She smiled proudly at him, standing up in the front of her cart and spreading her arms wide. “Charon and I convinced that old bitch McLafferty that it wouldn’t be worth it for her to keep old Cassidy Caravans, and we bought it back. And at a fraction of the cost!”

Arcade laughed, shaking his head. “So the old booze wagon is up and at it again?”

“Headed out of Dodge while the going is good. If the NCR wins, they’ll want in on my profits with taxes out the ass. If the Legion wins, they’ll probably want to shut me down. So I packed up the stills and sent them on ahead of me. We’re heading north, but I couldn’t leave without stopping to say goodbye.” She hopped down from the cart with practiced ease.

“And you didn’t, by chance, happen to know we’re opening up a bar here and decide it might be a good place to sell off some old stock?” Arcade raised an eyebrow with a smirk.

“Of course not! I would never do that to a friend.” Cass’ playfully innocent tone was enough to make Arcade burst out laughing. “Of course, if you _are_ interested, I happen to have a wide variety of things with me available for purchase. At a discount,” she winked elbowing him in the side. She leaned over and whispered, “for getting somebody to give me the wakeup call I needed.” She jerked her head over at Charon, who was leaning with crossed arms against the cart.

The tall ghoul nodded once in greeting, still looking surly as ever.

“So you _are_ of the booze?” Arcade hadn’t dared ask, but now that she’d voiced it he was thrilled to hear it. “You look good. Better, I mean. But still good. Not that you looked bad before, I mean—”

Now it was Cass’ turn to laugh. “No, I looked like shit before. But there’s more to this guy than that bulky exterior… not that I mind the exterior so much either.” She winked at him with a wicked grin that made Arcade sputter and cough.

“Cassidy!” he half-shouted, his eyebrows retreating up into his hairline. “Are you—”

“Hush,” she laughed, “he doesn’t like to talk about it.”

Arcade took her inside the Dive Bar and showed her around the small space. It wasn’t much to show off without a bar, but it was easy enough to visualize with the rest of the fixtures in place. Even though it was small, the place made her eyes beam as she looked around. Cliff, since the last time Arcade had been inside, had decorated the place. And, given the theme and what he had the most of in stock at his shop, had hidden dinosaurs anywhere and everywhere he could fit one. They filled little shelves up by the ceiling, were stuffed on the windowsills, along the counter and inside the cabinet set up for storing the alcohol, and numerous other places. Much to Cass’ amusement, they were decorated in various ways and outfits. One even had a little moustache painted on and wore a tiny little cardboard sombrero.

“This is the best theme bar I’ve ever seen, and I’ve seen a _lot_ of bars in my time.” She sat down at a table near the front window and took the whole place in. “Just waiting on the bar itself now?”

“That and the alcohol.”

“I think we can come to some arrangement on that. Save somebody a trip. I’m sad I won’t be here to see the place open.”

Arcade grinned, but it didn’t quite reach his eyes. “We’ll spill some for you.”

“Don’t spill too much,” Cass said with a smile. “Charon says I don’t drink anymore. And with how great I feel now that it’s out of my system, I don’t think that’s such a bad idea after all.”

The next day, after Cass had sold half her caravan’s stock and left for safer lands to the North, Ada came back with her boys pulling the bar behind them on a cart. It didn’t take long for them to get it into place, and that night the Dino Cave Dive Bar was officially christened and opened for business. They opened up a couple cases of beer that Cass had gifted them for that very purpose, and everyone drank on the house for the first night. Even Arcade was happy to see the place open, much to his own surprise.

“You know, Ada,” he said, leaning down on the bar on his elbows, “I have a wonderful idea.”

Ada quirked a drunken eyebrow at him, swaying lightly. She opened her mouth to say something, but all that came out was a questioning hiccup instead.

“Come ‘ere.” Arcade pointed down at the floor next to him.

With only a little bit of stumbling, Ada managed to swing herself around to behind the bar to approximately where Arcade had gestured, though she ended up on his left instead of his right. It didn’t matter.

He clapped her on the shoulder and grinned. “Now stay right there.” Very carefully, he made his way back around the bar to the chair she had been occupying moments before and sat down. “Perfect! You be the bartender; I’ll be the doctor.”

By the morning, every last one of the town’s residents were nursing headaches.

But the excitement was bound to fade.

Word of the Legion’s victory finally reached Novac by way of a caravan heading South-West for NCR territory. The Legion had taken control of Freeside and the Strip. The happiness that had settled over Novac evaporated as everyone made their decisions, whether to stay and accept the Legion’s rule (and hope for the best), or to pack up and leave their home for better hopes elsewhere. Most people stayed, not quite willing to leave after having lived in Novac for so long. Arcade wasn’t quite sure which side of the dividing line he fell on, but he packed his bags either way. The last time he’d heard from Vulpes had been before the battle, before he had gone to Freeside to try to reason with Six. And he was starting to lose hope that he ever would.

But Arcade waited, and he was rewarded for it.

Two days after the Legion’s victory had been announced to them, Vulpes wandered into town and knocked at Arcade’s door, dressed in simple gear. The same ratty jeans and leather jacket he’d worn inside the Thorn what seemed like months before. Maybe it had been; Arcade wasn’t too sure anymore. The days had all started to blend together.

“You came back.” Arcade wasn’t so much surprised as relieved. “I wasn’t sure if I’d be seeing you again.” He stood in the doorway, not wanting Vulpes to see the packed bags stuffed in next to the bed – though he was fairly sure the man saw them anyway. “I wasn’t sure if… I didn’t know how the…” he kept trying, but Arcade couldn’t quite seem to voice the idea that he’d been trying to ignore the battle as much as possible.

“I made it through well enough,” Vulpes said, his voice quiet. “There has been quite a lot for me to do since Caesar took the dam and the city, but I have managed to shift enough work around to take a few moments for myself.” He pulled off his sunglasses, revealing his bloodshot grey eyes and the exhaustion evident in them. “How have you been?”

Arcade almost laughed at the question, but the tone was sincere. The look in Vulpes eyes and furrowed brows showed genuine worry, even. “I’ve… I’ve been…” He wasn’t sure that ‘numb’ was the word that Vulpes was hoping for. “I’ve been alright.” Looking him up and down, Arcade noticed what looked like a piece of bandage peeking out through one of the rips in Vulpes jeans. “Were you hurt?” he asked, no longer caring what Vulpes saw in his room. “I should take a look at you if—”

“It’s nothing,” Vulpes said with a wave, but Arcade was already ushering him in to sit on the bed. “A simple graze.”

Raising an eyebrow at him, Arcade shoved Vulpes’ pant leg up anyway until the bandage wrapped around his calf was revealed. He gently unwrapped it, revealing a very delicate sewing job holding closed what was clearly more than a graze of a bullet, but not quite enough to qualify as a hole.

“Compliments of your Julie,” Vulpes remarked. “I did not tell her which side I was on, though I am confident she could deduce the answer on her own, given my request to avoid stimpaks and the like.”

Arcade nodded, deciding that the wound was clean enough to wrap back up as it was. He secured it back into place with its pins and gave Vulpes a serious look. “Any other new battle scars?”

Vulpes laughed, shaking his head. “Only bruises. I find it much more useful to simply avoid being hit, rather than fight through impacts.”

 _No wonder they call him the clever one._ “Put a warm cloth on them for a while every day. They’ll heal faster.” If he kept his mind focused on being a doctor, he didn’t have to think about making choices about staying and leaving and what to do about Vulpes. “If they’re not getting better in a few days you might have a fractured bone.”

“Arcade—”

“If you’ve broken something, you really ought to get it looked at.”

“Arca—”

“What if you’ve broken a rib! You could puncture a lung if you’re not careful.”

Vulpes tried to interject again, but all he could do was take in a breath before Arcade cut him off again.

“How do you think I would feel if you came all this way with a broken rib and punctured your lung because of it?”

Rolling his eyes, Vulpes leaned forward and grabbed Arcade’s shoulders with both hands, pulling him forward into a kiss to silence him. Arcade wasn’t sure if he wanted to laugh or cry, but he melted into it anyway.

The kiss only lasted a moment, but it was enough. “Let’s get something to drink while the kitchen’s still empty. It won’t be long before someone decides to come out for dinner.”

“The kitchen or the bar?” Arcade asked, still somewhat dazed. His eyes itched, watering just slightly, but he ignored them. “The bar has Ada, but it also has real drinks.”

“Perhaps just the kitchen,” Vulpes said gently, standing up and moving towards the door. “I don’t know if I’ll be staying the night, and it would be less than ideal to make the trek back North while intoxicated.”

 

(*~*~* For Alt ending, skip to next chapter! *~*~*) 

 

Arcade quickly rubbed at his eyes, then made a show of cleaning his glasses when Vulpes turned back to face him again. But the thought that Vulpes might not be staying made him realize that Vulpes already knew what Arcades plans were, even though he himself hadn’t. Silently, the pair headed down the stairs outside and across the street towards the tent.

“You knew I wasn’t going to stay in Novac, didn't you.” Arcade didn’t bother to make it sound like a question; it really wasn’t one. He plunked down a bottle of water in front of each of them, and cracked open his own even though he didn’t want it.

A soft grin crossed Vulpes’ features, but it didn’t quite meet his eyes. “I had an inkling.” His gaze drifted, following the dust picked up by the wind.

It wasn’t really the time to be curious anymore, but Arcade had to ask. “An inkling?”

The grin widened. “You remind me of a pup Antony was raising a few years ago, when the Legion first arrived in the Mojave. Each night she would escape from her crate and find some new place to explore within the Fort. She caused quite a bit of trouble, but turned out to be a very loyal little beast.”

“What happened to her?”

“She became one of my own hounds. But after a while, she left for something new. I would assume she grew as tired of my life as you have.”

Arcade winced. “No wonder you're so fond of me.” He hated to admit it, but it wasn’t entirely wrong. Arcade could never comfortably settle down with Vulpes – with _any_ soldier, for that matter. Killing, the constant killing… It didn’t sit well in his stomach. Even when men he hated were dying, he couldn’t just sit by and watch it all happen.

Vulpes dug the toe of his boot into the dirt, then kicked at the dent in the earth with his heel. Arcade wanted to reach for him, knowing that the man must feel as much a want for it as he himself did, but resisted.

“Do you still not believe that I will do anything to ensure your safety?” Vulpes asked.

The question bit at Arcade like a snake at his throat, stealing the breath right from him. It took several seconds for him to even formulate an answer, and several more to voice it. “It’s not that I don’t believe. It’s that I can’t willingly become a Legion citizen, slave, any of it.”

Silence followed. There wasn’t even a tumbleweed with the decency to roll by and brake the awkward pain of the moment for them. “I...” Vulpes cut off his own words, crossing his arms before trying again, attempting to keep his cracking composure. “I do not wish to think of what I will become. Of the things I will do without you as my conscience. You remind me that even in war, some things cannot be tolerated.”

This time Arcade did grab him, despite his better judgement. “So leave the Legion,” Arcade said, fingers digging into Vulpes shoulders. “You could live in Novac. It needs a sniper, a second bartender, we’ll find something for you.”

Vulpes forced a laugh, shaking his head. “I couldn’t leave the Legion, you know that.”

“And you know I can’t join it.” Arcade let go of Vulpes’ shoulders and dropped his arms back to his sides, knowing what it meant for them.

“Then we are at an impasse.”

Arcade shook his head. “A crossroads.”

Vulpes scoffed and rolled his eyes. “We never could see eye-to-eye.”

“Only because I’m a gargantuan brute.”

“Always a self-depreciating joke.”

“I told you, I’m not very interesting.”

Vulpes smirked, cocking his head to the side. His words were quiet, but pointed.  “You lied.”

 

That night, Vulpes did stay. To Arcade’s surprise, he was waiting at the edge of the bed in the morning. They both had other places they needed to be. Not wanting to go back to the NCR or go deeper into Legion territory, Arcade was left with the option of heading North. So, at least for a little while, they could walk together. And walking together for a moment would be better than nothing at all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Now that I've reached the end of this, I'm not even sure what to say. I have to thank you, of course, for reading through to the end. Especially for dealing with this chapter being so long as it was. I considered breaking it into two, and even though there were places I could have done it, I think it works better as just one. I'll still be going through from the beginning of the fic and editing each chapter, if you for some reason should ever choose to reread this. If you do, I'd love to know! 
> 
> I don't think I'll be writing a follow-up to either ending here, though it's always possible. I don't ever like to say that I definitely won't write something's sequel. Just don't uh expect one. There might be little ficlets here and there, but in my mind, this one is done. 
> 
> Thanks for reading.
> 
> Afterword posted at tumblr, [here](http://adira-tyree.tumblr.com/post/142873717667/i-basically-wrote-an-afterword-for-a-fox-a-wolf).


	26. Alt Ending

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ALTERNATE ENDING!
> 
>  
> 
> _(For those of you who like happy stories...)_

Arcade quickly rubbed at his eyes, then made a show of cleaning his glasses when Vulpes turned back to face him again. But the thought that Vulpes might not be staying made him realize that Vulpes already knew what Arcades plans were, even though he himself hadn’t. Silently, the pair headed down the stairs outside and across the street towards the tent.

“You knew I wasn’t going to stay in Novac, didn't you.” Arcade didn’t bother to make it sound like a question; it really wasn’t one. He plunked down a bottle of water in front of each of them, and cracked open his own even though he didn’t want it.

A soft grin crossed Vulpes’ features, but it didn’t quite meet his eyes. “I had an inkling.” His gaze drifted, following the dust picked up by the wind.

It wasn’t really the time to be curious anymore, but Arcade had to ask. “An inkling?”

The grin widened. “You remind me of a pup Antony was raising a few years ago, when the Legion first arrived in the Mojave. Each night she would escape from her crate and find some new place to explore within the Fort. She caused quite a bit of trouble, but turned out to be a very loyal little beast.”

“What happened to her?”

“She became one of my own hounds.”

Arcade laughed, shaking his head. “No wonder you're so fond of me.” He hated to admit it, but it wasn’t entirely wrong. Despite everything that had happened, the constant confusion and back-and-forth trips North and South, North and South again, the idea of settling down with Vulpes wasn’t entirely unappealing. If only because it meant having Vulpes around. But the killing… the constant killing going on around him had to stop.

Vulpes dug the toe of his boot into the dirt, then kicked at the dent in the earth with his heel. Arcade wanted to reach for him, knowing that the man must feel as much a want for it as he himself did, but resisted.

“Do you still not believe that I will do anything to ensure your safety?” Vulpes asked.

The question bit at Arcade like a snake at his throat, stealing the breath right from him. It took several seconds for him to even formulate an answer, and several more to voice it. “It’s not that I don’t believe. It’s that I can’t willingly become a Legion citizen, slave, any of it.”

Vulpes bit at the inside of his lip before responding. “I will do my best to shield you from it. Caesar has gifted me with great war-spoils, at my request. One being this settlement, the other… essentially an early retirement. As soon as I train a new successor, I may live here as I please. So long as I’m near enough to come back and provide insight when needed.”

“So… you’re leaving the Legion?”

“I couldn’t leave the Legion, you know that. But I will no longer be on active duty, and thus will be able to enjoy civilian life…” Vulpes, with slow movements as though he was afraid that anything too sudden might scare Arcade away like a wounded animal, snaked his arms around the taller man’s waist. “…and its added benefits.”

Arcade grinned so broadly that it seemed to spread across his entire being. He couldn’t even find a way to thank him. After a moment, Arcade stopped bothering to try. Vulpes would know what it meant to him, sooner or later, if he didn’t already. “I’ll try not to make it too boring for you.” Arcade pulled Vulpes even closer.

“Always a self-depreciating joke.”

“I told you, I’m not very interesting.”

Vulpes smirked, cocking his head to the side. His words were quiet, but pointed. “You lied.”

 

Even though Vulpes didn’t stay that night, Arcade slept soundly. It wasn’t perfect, in fact it was far from it. There was still the fact that he would become a Legion citizen, and that there was no good way to avoid it. There would be the eventual problem of explaining to everyone just who this man really was, and the fallout from it would likely shake the town for some time. But it was a start, and that was well worth it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Now that I've reached the end of this, I'm not even sure what to say. I have to thank you, of course, for reading through to the end. Especially for dealing with this chapter being so long as it was. I considered breaking it into two, and even though there were places I could have done it, I think it works better as just one. I'll still be going through from the beginning of the fic and editing each chapter, if you for some reason should ever choose to reread this. If you do, I'd love to know!
> 
> For the record, I don't write happy stories. I love seeing characters get the fairy-tale ending, or even just something that'll be close enough to make them happy. But it's not really the type of story I write. Everyone is miserable through to the end in my writing. But sometimes I can be convinced to let my readers enjoy such things. ♥
> 
> I don't think I'll be writing a follow-up to either ending here, though it's always possible. I don't ever like to say that I definitely won't write something's sequel. Just don't uh expect one. There might be little ficlets here and there, but in my mind, this one is done.
> 
> Thanks for reading.
> 
> Afterword posted at tumblr, [here](http://adira-tyree.tumblr.com/post/142873717667/i-basically-wrote-an-afterword-for-a-fox-a-wolf).


End file.
